I’ve been journaling since the summer of 2007. I don’t know why I started exactly, and I’ve had times of near constant journaling as well as times of writing famine. It’s part of the ebb and flow of life, I suppose. That sounds very poetic, but life itself is generally less of a poem and more like a grisly war story.
A while back I started copying/transcribing my old journals onto a computer file to have and save for when the time comes that the ink fades and the paper turns into dusty crumbles and everything I’ve written is erased from the world. More recently I thought that I should probably, in addition to or instead of, scan the pages of my journals so my handwriting, side notes, and doodles can be saved as well.
Last night a third idea came. “What about an audio recording of your journals?” the idea asked. That is, to record myself reading my journals aloud to have and save that way as well.
I’ve just done a trial run to see how it works on a whim without preparation of any sort and here’s what I’ve already discovered after a mere five minutes of reading out loud to myself:
1: I have terrible rhythm and pacing when I read aloud. This is not really surprising. I don’t routinely utilize my voice for speaking unless I’m at home. Despite being at home whilst doing this audio version of old journal entries, the fact that I’m doing it AS an audio project puts the pressure on, and also I haven’t read out loud in eons. Basically, if I have to speak out loud it’s going to be awkward.
2: If listening wasn’t painful due to my strange verbalization patterns, it’s awkward because of my teenage-self’s writing style. I’d say that should put the fear of God into me to improve my current journal writing style, but, ha, I haven’t journaled in over six months, so…about that. I apparently felt compelled to write how I spoke (ahem, speak), using words such as “kinda”, “sorta”, “prolly” (instead of “probably”), and “bout” (instead of “about”).
3: I’m afraid I speak in a painful monotone. I’m not certain, but I feel like I do.
4: I kind of like the sound, though, even if it is monotone. Maybe I’m just horribly vain.
5: Despite the potential monotone voice, I have surprising vehemence (a great word, vehemence) when reading certain words or phrases. It depends on how I punctuated around them, what the word was, what the sentence was, and what was happening in the entry, but in just the two short journal entries I read aloud there were a few places I noticed and thought, whoa, I was really intense there. (As a slight side note, I’ve been told in the past that “feelings lie”. I’ve never found that to be particularly helpful, and while it may be true on occasion, it is definitively untrue at other times. I don’t recall every individual situation recorded in my journals, but the feelings are still there, and many of the feelings I can still recall clearly. All that to say, I really don’t care if the feelings lie. They were still feelings and they were very deeply felt if I can still feel them today.)
This has been a lot of words to say not an awful lot, as per usual. As if anything about this ignored blog is “usual”. The thing’s barely utilized. I’m not sure why I bothered to start it. Regardless, I’ve been in a mood to write and this is probably a safer thing to publish on the internet than what I wrote on a whim last night and thought I might post. I was going to put it up and probably not acknowledge any comments, but if that’s the case then why put it out at all except to be able to say “I got it off my chest”, but that’s not really a wise thing to do and I’d likely end up regretting it.
This migratory mind is going to migrate elsewhere now. Until next time.
migratory mind 