what I do when I finish a journal

I was sitting on a bright red front porch in Russellville, with Penny Allison Lockhart, great-niece of Alice Allison Dunnigan. The porch belonged to the Payne-Dunnigan House, a historic home where Alice often stayed when she returned to her hometown of Russellville.

I had recently read Alice’s unabridged autobiography — more than 600 pages that covered her entire life in great detail.

“She had to have kept great records,” I said to Penny. “Do you know — did she keep a journal?”

Penny said she wasn’t sure about journals, though she remembered lots of papers and notes from her trips to visit her Aunt Alice in Washington, D.C.

“She may have been writing each chapter in a little book like this,” she said, pointing to the slim reporters notebook I was holding. “She had a bunch of those that the spiral was across the top…They were yellow and had a line down the middle of them. There were stacks of those.”

I’ve looked through the two archival collections of Alice’s work; there are no journals or notebooks to be found there. I’m curious what she wrote in them, how she organized them in her house, when and for what she referenced them.

I’m particularly interested in Alice Dunnigan, of course, but I’m interested in all journal-keepers, diarists, notebook-carriers. Austin Kleon, a writer and illustrator, frequently shares his notebook habits in his newsletter and on his Instagram. I loved reading a recent piece: “What I do when I finish a notebook.”

This week I finished a journal: 208 pages long, designed by Morgan Harper Nichols in shades of red and teal. The front also includes MHN’s words: “Wherever you find yourself this season, may rhythms of grace find you, too.”

Because I loved Kleon’s newsletter and because the timing lined up just right, I’m sharing more about my process of moving from one journal to another.  

I begin to feel a bit antsy when I’m nearing the end of a journal. I typically take notice when the remaining chunk of journal is thin enough that it makes positioning and writing difficult. This realization is a motivator for me to journal more — I always respond well to the pressure of a deadline.

Once I’m at this point, I select my next journal. Unlike Kleon, who consistently uses the same brand and style of journal, I have myriad options to choose from. A small shelf in our office closet is devoted to 20 or so blank journals — some that I purchase when I find a good one, some gifts from friends and family who know my rather picky preferences.

Over the past two years, I’ve found it fun to let my husband Loui pick my next journal. He returns from the closet with a fresh journal and an explanation as to why he chose it, which I really enjoy.

Photo taken by my friend Jordan Prather, to celebrate my 10th anniversary of journaling in 2021. I need to take updated journal portraits!

I chose for myself this time, though. I noted that I was nearing the end of my current journal just days before a trip to Florida, which was tricky: I didn’t want to reach the end of my journal and not have another while on vacation. So I decided to take a blank journal as well, but I had to take packing light into account — plus I like following a long journal with a short journal anyway.  

That was part of the reason I chose a short Rifle Paper Co. journal, a pale green color adorned with flowers and butterflies. The other reason is that my friend Arden gifted me that journal, and she was my travel companion.

Though I did journal in the evenings on our trip, I didn’t actually finish my “rhythms of grace” journal until a couple days after I returned home. I wrote in it from July 27 to October 7, covering June 28 to September 13.

To prepare the floral journal, I wrote my name and phone number in the inside cover — please, if you ever find one of my journals, return it to me (without reading)!

I also wrote 82, as this is my 82nd journal since I started consistently keeping one at age 13. Well, kind of — I accidentally labeled two journals in a row 36 and didn’t realize until many journals later. So one is 36b, and I’ll forever actually be one journal ahead of my official count.

Back to 82: I transferred over my two Post-It notes, one for September and one for October, which I use to check off days as I journal about them. On the first lined page, with a small green drawing of some berries on a vine, I wrote two dates: October 7, for the day I was writing on, and September 14, for the day I would be writing about.  

And now that journal is my constant companion, until it’s filled and I’m on to the next.

In the kind of lovely coincidence I enjoy, I also finished my reporters notebook this week and started a new one. There are many excitingly blank pages ahead!