I love journals – what writer doesn’t? I’m sure you’ve heard it before: the smell of the paper, the feel of the covers, the bright promise of clean pages.

Long before I dreamed of writing my own stories, I loved the pure hope contained in all those blank pages. The promise and possibilities can’t be compared to anything else in a writer’s life.

I have a shelf full of journals from years ago. Most are half to three-fourths full, abandoned for different reasons – temporarily misplaced in a move, a deep blue funk that lasted for months, even angry times I didn’t want to commit to paper. Most of these, when I came back to them, seemed to end so far in the past, it was easier and less depressing to buy a new one.

I had trouble keeping to regular entries (sound familiar, blog readers?). The old “nothing happened” horror. Then a few years ago I began taking my journal with me to a local coffee shop at the end of my morning bike ride. I developed a routine that involved writing down the date, time, day of the week, temperature, moving into descriptions of the weather as well as the people around me. It’s become part of my every morning wake-up wherever I am. Impetus will carry me beyond the simple details and into thoughts, no matter how dull a day I’ve had.

All my life I’ve lusted after the leather-covered blank books in stores. I’ve spent happy afternoons caressing those soft brown covers with embossed images that harken back to when paper pages were cherished and enfolded not in cardboard but in something approaching eternity. They used to be rare, until “journaling” became a thing for discovering yourself. Who doesn’t want to discover themselves in their own words in an indisputably beautiful book? But I could never afford to buy one, or at least have never been in a place financial when I could justify paying what a leather cover demands. My breathless prose can shine just as well between cheap paper covers. Regrettably.

So imagine my delight when I found this one at the local thrift store and was told I could have it for a dollar. Cue dancing in the aisle. The spine had been broken right at the front; someone had opened it perhaps a little too eagerly? Without the proper respect? And perhaps the broken spine spoiled it for them, for all the pages were empty, the book abandoned, thrown into a donation box.

I took my treasure home, filled in the last few pages of my current journal, pleasingly ending on December 31 of 2023. On the first day of 2024 I began writing on the first page of my beautiful leather-bound book.

Then one day it fell open to the very last page, one that had skipped my attention. And there I found a strange list dated January 2014.

Ten years ago. I was filled with wonder.

Why would someone write a “thankfulness” list on the very last page of their blank journal, and then never write anything again?

In case the photo isn’t clear, here’s a transcription:

“January 3, 2014

Thank you…

1. That my depression has been better the past few days

2. That my dr appt finally got set up

3. That we are going to Pen! [Pennsylvania? not sure]

4. That we have good food to eat and a warm house in this cold weather

5. That I am enjoying skiing”

I am torn by questions. How did the ‘dr appt’ go? Did the writer stop writing because the depression got worse? Or because it got better? How was the trip to “Pen”?

And, please God, are they still enjoying skiing?

The thrift shop doesn’t keepa record of the donor of each separate item, so I assume I’ll never know the truth. But there’s always fiction. There’s a story there, somewhere.

Journals can contain many kinds of inspiration.