April 25, 2004
The $3 Doctor


Sometimes the best thing to do for your spiritual health is to skip church: to get away for a moment, an hour, a day. This morning I tossed my journal in the car, and drove alone to Decatur, home of one of Atlanta's oldest, greenest graveyards.

I went to the graveyard because I wanted to think about some things. It's so refreshing to be in a place where no one interrupts your thoughts.

The cemetery was bright and quiet, except for the sound of quarrelling ducks over by the pond. I took a seat on the bench set off from the pond.

Across the lawn, a duck spotted me and waddled over. He was looking for breakfast, and he took it poorly when he discovered that I carried only a pen and paper. I don't know if he believed my feet were made of bread, or if he was just feeling wicked, but when he began to eat my toes, I decided to relocate.



I finally found a shady bench on the opposite side of the graveyard, beneath a giant tree. And I opened my journal.



I've been keeping a paper journal since 1993. In my bedroom (specifically, in the Zen bookcase) is a giant drawer full of finished journals — page after page of meticulous black ink on lined paper.

Over the years, friends have picked up on the fact that I write a lot in my journal. I've received not a few journals as gifts, pretty blank books with creamy paper and gorgeous decorative covers. I've tried to work in these journals, and I've sometimes succeeded — but I always drift back to my old standard, which is a college-ruled notebook with a rugged plastic cover, usually spiral bound. These notebooks cost $3.00 at the drugstore, and they are the cheapest form of therapy I've found.



The payoffs for writing in a journal are subtle at first, but the dividends over the years are immense. Now I know that when I get in a funk, I've got to find a time to work it out on paper.

This morning I wrote and wrote and wrote. I wrote difficult, strangled questions that have been caught in my heart for weeks now, waiting for an opportunity to spill out. I wrote about concerns over the future. I wrote words of gratitude for the brilliant people in my life. I wrote so much that I lost track of time.

This kind of uncensored, deeply personal writing is a way of life for me. It's one of the healthiest habits I've ever developed, an addiction I hope I'll never be able to break. It was born out of necessity and it continues out of necessity; those college-ruled lines have talked me down from more than a few ledges over the years. Over the years, they've strengthened my resolve, soothed my griefs, and checked my tongue.



As you might imagine, the kind of writing I do in my paper journal is pretty different from the kind of writing I do here. Though I make a point not to indulge myself in my paper journal, it is certainly home to a lot of petty junk. But that's one of the purposes of the journal. I dump the junk out on paper, and leave it there.

Without a doubt, the time I've spent writing in my journal has made me a stronger and wiser woman. I ended up spending half my time in the graveyard thinking about how grateful I am for the quiet blessing of those pages, for the simple ability to set words down on paper, and to find healing there.