The Convivial Life, always a Page-Turning Experience
I lay in bed with laptop fired up, ready to turn and possibly type out some of the pages of a journal I’ve kept since December 2002.
The journal (shown below) was a gift from my brother after I got married. He knew I was headed on a seven city tour of Europe for my honeymoon and wanted me to have what I needed to document my travels.
I didn’t do much writing out there since I was busy being a newlywed woman, skipping along the bridges of Venice, Italy, hand in hand with husband, and snapping photos of Italian women riding bikes in fur coats. But eventually, I did begin to document my life and fill its pages year by year.
As I review this journal, the events of my life are clear: there are details about my last days in Banking, sentiments of fear as I embarked on a new path, that of a writer, pranks I played on hubby before kids; there’s mention of the first business I started, thus getting my feet wet in entrepreneurship, and sweet musings by a new mother that demonstrate the joy and adoration I experienced with my firstborn son.
I’ve changed so much since my hand first wrote in those pages. I’ve grown much wiser, have made plenty mistakes, gained and lost a few friendships along the way, and yet…
Every new day brings the gift of a blank canvas to create more stories, learn even more lessons, to connect the dots of life in so many new ways.
If you look back on the last decade of your life, what memories flash before your mind’s eye?
I bet you’ll see joy, sorrow, disappointment, happiness, periods of confusion and doubt all mixed up and sprinkled about in that visual.
In recounting the memories, the lessons learned, the times you fell and found yourself standing yet again, the people who’ve contributed to your life, the epiphanies had, where they led you, where they continue to lead you, I’m certain you’ll find joy in knowing that it all happened and continues to happen because such is life…a convivial one, that is.
In the comments below, let me know how you get creative in leaving a trail of details that make up your page-turning existence? Are you your family’s historian, snapping pictures of everyone and every gathering? Be sure to get in some of those shots! Or perhaps you’re painting as my husband does, therefore decorating the walls of your home with canvas after canvas of your soul? Do you have a collection of sorts that you will come to be known by? Do tell!
Until the next time,
I have stories, stories of growth, immaturity, love, pain, moments in life when i just said “Fuck It”, mind sets, changes, friends, moments in my career. I don’t write, like yourself, and i don’t have the gift of expressing myself through art and painting, and and I’m not a huge fan of meeting people, so i don’t really share my stories with people. My stories are on my flesh, Tattoos. some people have a very narrow view of tattoos, ask most people why they don’t like them, most don’t even have an answer. I look at my body, and i see the growth of me as a man. 18 years old when i got my first tattoo, a wolf. why a wolf? the real reason…i don’t know, at 18 i wanted to look tough. so i got a huge tattoo on my shoulder. at 18, i had no clue who i was, i was just trying to figure it out. i had zero confidence in me, but that started to changed when i got some ink on me. for the first time in my life i felt like…………..ME. 14 years later, I’ve come to really understand me. who i really am. but tattooed on my flesh i can see the growth of that journey. I’m filled with stories of my life, sometimes i look at them and laugh and remember crazy nights in Central America, I remember the feeling of love and the feeling of losing it. I remember my father who i had a very difficult relationship with, and how now, how much i admire what everyone thought were his faults, i remember friends that were supposed to be there til the end of time, and how sometimes shit just doesn’t turn out the way you think. i see the word “Loco” and i remember times in my mid 20’s…CRAZY TIMES, fun, but loco..lol. i see a dove, and how i am at peace with who i am, no more figuring it out, this is me, and fucking love me. i see the betrayal of people that were supposed to be family. i have dedications to people i consider a very important part of my life, not many gestures are as high as making someone a part of your flesh. I have many more stories, and i think of the stories that will be cut into my skin in the future. writing……painting…..building……dare i say tattoos…….its all art.
8 May 12
Oh damn, that’s f*cking awesome! Tattoos, yes, it’s all art. Like I say, art is LIFE…in whatever way you choose to express it. It’s about your story and the form or medium in which you choose to share it.
8 May 12