5 years of this journal
this is a post about all the past lives of this journal, as it accompanied me through five years of the journey.
2015 | life #1: 9-5er writing about dreaming
I’ve started writing journal posts in 2015 — the year after graduating college with a degree in creative writing & history. I knew that I wanted to be a writer. I knew that I wanted to make art. that year, I was 24 years old, working a full time day job in marketing for a small business, living in upper Manhattan with a boyfriend I loved, and swimming daily in existential angst — desperately trying to figure out how to organize my life so that I could make time for art, and how to be on a path so that one day, art could both be my life — and support my life.
so, I wrote about it. I obsessed over the creative process and business. I read all the books on creativity and productivity, listened to all the podcasts, read all the stuff I could find on the internet. I absorbed other people’s advice like it was water for my dehydrated artistic soul. I wrote about building morning routines, I collected advice for creatives, and, at a turning point between 2015-2016, I grappled existentially on the difference between creatives and creative professionals. I decided that I needed to — had to — go all in.
2016 | life #2: hustler writing about hustling
so in January of 2016, I jumped. after 18 months, I quit my first (and only) full time job, and began the hustle. I formed my own branding, design, and coaching business (I had no idea what the hell I was doing), and started writing posts three times a week — about branding for creatives, overcoming creative paralysis, the stuff I learned in typography class, early lessons of a creative business, iteration vs perfectionism, and collecting inspiration logs from things I liked on the internet.
summer of 2016, I paused the hustle to take a cross-country with my boyfriend (who was moving to Seattle) — and made visual diaries along the way. I started a postcard project — sending meticulously painted postcards of our roadtrip stops — to any strangers or friends who requested one.
I came back alone to NYC. at the end of 2016, we ended the (five and a half) year relationship, and it was a very, very bad breakup. I was so broken inside that I did not write for three months.
2017 | life #3: a seeker seeking healing
I started a part time job at a design studio, and had the time and space and financial stability to explore my own artistic practices, daily habits, and explore how my art fed into wellbeing. I wrote about 365 days of painting a moon everyday, sensing into my own creative metabolism, being reborn by haircut, and going to the gym. it was a time of incubation and healing for me. I started a new relationship.
2018-2019 | life #4 an artist writing about wayfinding
anytime I got comfortable, it meant it was time to be reborn again. in summer of 2018, the design studio and I ended our arrangement with each other, and I took on a massive art installation client project that left me feeling completely exhausted (and broke). I was living in between three places, and fighting constantly with my boyfriend at the time. if 2017 was like death, then 2018 was eternal stress. I started selling art and pottery. I was constantly stressed about money, and feeling continual shame and self-judgement for recieving help from my parents. through it all, I reflected on how I found my artist path, and I documented all the different practices for wellbeing, and I started writing (again) about daily rituals, like waking up early and sleeping early, and sensing into what feels good: like the difference between false comfort and nourishment. through all of this, I was discovering my own artistic practices — writing poetic essays, painting, and doing experimental book projects.
2019-2020 | life #5 - a poet collecting life fragments
by September of 2019, I had already decided that I was going to leave NYC and start slow-traveling the world. that’s when I started putting less pressure on myself in every area of my life, which included this journal.
I started writing more frequent, less “polished” posts — about whatever was rolling around my mind, half-chewed, undigested — and it started out well-formed: my personal hierarchy of books, my working methodology for building a dream business-castle, emotions being like birds, finding home anywhere, my practice of digital solitude…
then, as 2020 went on, I started writing short posts every (week) day, while accompanying each post with an illustration on my infinite notebook / ipad. I began to luxuriate in the process rather than the output of my journal. I stopped thinking about “target audience” and focused on what I wanted to express. I wrote for me.
I wrote anything and everything I was thinking about: feeling homesick during corona time, doing a nude virtual photoshoot, my high-school graduation speech, my relationship with time, my reflections on bodies are just bodies, my sense of truth as a glittering glacier, etc, etc. I found so much freedom in expression. the journal turned into a daily exercise — an act of witnessing myself; and sometimes it would be just art: like this flower poem, or this microfilm of a summer morning.
this journal followed me through all of my travels during the pandemic — through confinement happiness in Japan, going to summer chaos and overwhelm in Napoli, Italy, then finding myself alone and lost in Berlin. it was my vessel for my thoughts and feelings; an ongoing conversation and documentation of my days.
2021 | life #6 | ???
but. I know it’s time for this journal to transform again, because I’m getting bored of posting daily poetic thought-fragments. I’m not sure what the new V6.0 will look like.
I’m reflecting on what feels good and I’d like to keep, it’s these elements:
writing primarily for myself, as an extended documentation / note-to-self
at the same time: being sensitive to how it can help and serve kindred spirits
writing about my inner/outer life now, rather than topics planned in advance
holding space for daily visual expression & experimentation (but possibly not in this journal) …
writing as an act of discovering myself: my mind, my inspirations — on the page, and pushing those boundaries further.
Intentions for the rebirth of this journal
Depth, expansion, and discovery: I think I’ll write less often than everyday, but grapple more deeply with a topic on my mind — an idea, a piece of art, a way of being, a question — and push the boundaries of my thinking beyond what I already know. I’d like to make more discoveries on the page, rather than repeating old themes without taking them further.
Projecting my voice outwards: my last year of my journal has been like intimate, fragmented notes to myself. I think it’s time to face outwards again and share things that might feel too opininated, intense, or provocative — my personal philosophies around art and life. My way of seeing the world, and my manifesto for living life as art — and art as a life.
An outlet for all of my intensity: I feel like I’m meant to bridge the gap between my mind-space and this web-space. I want this journal to be a working vessel for:
ongoing reflections (on my own artistic process)
an inspiration log — a detailed documentation of things that inspire me
my personal philosophies and methodology — on living a contemplative, creative life in the digital age
maybe I’ll explore vlogs or audio (podcast) format?
??? who knows what else.
that is all that I can say for now. I suppose that the writing will speak for itself.
I will update this post in another five years, or less.