My methods have changed over the years, but the effect remains the same. Somewhere, there are only stumps in a former forest, because I have single-handedly devastated whacks of trees with my daily habit of three-pages-each-morning journalling.

The picture shows two years of that habit. These two binders are out of the Rubbermaid container buried in the basement in Sechelt. The pink bin is filled with small journals, scribblers, wire-bound notebooks, fancy leather books, and loose sheets tied with ribbon.

I pulled those years in particular because I am working on my memoir and I want to see what I was thinking & what was happening and when it occurred. Relying strictly on my memory of events is not exactly fool-proof…or perhaps proof that a fool is afoot.

Unfortunately, I’m not a very good diarist. I am just as prone to wax on for two pages about the previous night’s dream and then fill a full page with purple prose while describing my coffee and the way the ocean is gleaming. This doesn’t do me much good when I’m trying to find out what exactly was happening on the date in question.

But then I find other days where I’m amazed at the detail of a particular moment or feeling. And now, with my perspective of time and distance, I want to yell at my past-self to let her know what’s coming and to tell her what I can see from here that she could not.

As I read these pages, I can see some things that are so obvious now and sadly, should have been obvious then too. But as I was writing back then, I seemed to be unable to rise above my circumstances and be objective.

“Colleen!” I mutter at the pages, “Grab some perspective. Look at the big picture!”

It’s good advice. I might take it.