Love Letters to my life #4: Harvesting my "journal"

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Years ago, friends of mine wrote a book on gleaning memories, moments, and "thought seeds" from your journals. I thought it was a way cool idea ... however, my journals were haphazard at best and my harvest was meagre.

This morning, as I was doing some reorganization of my Evernote files, I found something I had written a couple of years ago that was perfect for what I'm thinking about right now. It turned into a post about what I call my Ancestor Reclamation Project of remembering and honoring the non-DNA ancestors of my life. Writing that post led me to my photos file to find pictures to go with them, which also sparked other memories and thoughts. 

Suddenly I realized my computer is my journal, made up primarily of all my writings which go into Evernote and my twenty-some-odd thousand photos in Photos. Combined with the internet which holds my two active blogs, and all the stuff on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, I have a massive journal that also has the benefit of being light weight. 

Of course, I also have paper journals, but they tend to be a mess. My friend Cynthia is an art journal person and I drool over hers but I’m finally reconciling myself to the fact that my journals are ugly ducklings, but they are mine.

A story I remember about Buckminster Fuller was that, at a very young age, maybe 20ish, he decided to document the life of an “ordinary person.” It makes me wonder how much the practice of documenting our lives actually change it. I’m sure even the erratic, sometimes beautiful, sometimes just plain messy, version of journaling that I do changes me, opens up new connections, leads to new perceptions, and deepens my experience of life.

As I walk further into this strange land of advanced years, I am delighted to have created documentation that helps me understand more about my journey. I look back with fondness for where I’ve been and in anticipation of what lies before me. 

Here's a gleaning from this morning ... a poem written obviously some time ago and an early piece of digital art.

It's about time

 Time

Fifty years and four have
flown past my door.
I no longer have time
to not have time.

I do not have time to zoom past a field of flowers
glowing orange in the morning sun.
I do not have time to travel the world seeking
the wonders to be found in my own backyard.

I do not have time
to come back later
Or do it tomorrow
for tomorrow may never be.

I do not have time
to not slow down,
to put off a poem, delay a hug
or walk past a prayer.

I no longer have time,
for now, time has me.