I wasn't sure how to describe this topic. I bought my first Moleskine a few months ago hoping that writing anything would jump start my fiction work. (It did)

For some reason I just couldn't bring myself to write a traditional journal. Doing so was first suggested to me years ago by my first psyc supervisor who among so many in the profession seemed to think that journaling is a good tool towards the goal of improved mental health. I just couldn't do it...I mean the guy was so much like my father how could I do what he wants? Besides, who wants mental health? (besides my old clients that is...) Not sure how much a help I was in that department but I digress.

Very slow forward to the present... I buy this Moleskine but couldn't write a thing. It seemed so self centered. But what if I die? How will my one-year-old son Benjamin know me? So I begin to write a "how to book," sort of like the thing that Tom Hanks was doing in the movie Philadelphia. Only there wasn't much to write since I really didn't know how to do much of anything. I mean, yeah...I can teach young Ben to shave against the grain (or is it with the grain)? But who was I to impart any wisdom. Better to point him towards the Torah or Bagavad Gita or DT Suzuki or Timothy Leary or for that matter South Park or the guys on Queer Eye. Now that guy knows how to shave. Yet what could I really teach the boy? Take Pepcid complete? Keep the water clean? The best line in the book is, "You don't really have to do this if you don't want to..." (You'd be surprised)

So here is what has happened - or if I wrote the way I originally intended - So here's what's happened...Everything I'm writing in these darn things is sort of like a letter to my son who at the moment is 1 year and 21 days old. First the wrecked college years. Moleskine #1. Then back-tracked to the dangerously crazy high school years. Moleskine #2. Then the traveling, 18-years-old in Italy when Aldo Moro was kindnapped. Katushna's raining a bit on the Kibbutz a year later, falling in the manhole in Quito later still, the girl, dengue (I don't like dengue), the freezing sideways rain in Paris and the apartment near Odeon. The model with the pet rat ( I didn't really know her well but one doesn't forget such things); Forgotten nights in Amsterdam (days too). Bunch more stuff, kind of repetitive but you get the idea. Moleskine #3.

Now Moleskine #4 hasn't been written yet. A decade and a half of cleaning up isn't nearly so interesting and marrying an angel who gives me a beautiful son - well not a lot of drama to that either. Nice though. There is something to be said about nice things.

Oh the "journaling" did jumpstart things. Almost finished writing this novel thingy. Ironic that I did it in long hand using these Blue Sky leather covered notebooks from Office Depot. I switch off fountain pens every few pages or so, different inks... I find it ironic since before that I did so much of my writing through dictation on the computer. Now that didn't get me far at all. Thoughts of my cousin rejection way far away, at least for now.

I did start this other thing today, a current journal. Not a Molskine, but this thick lined thing from Firenze. Yeah I know a little late and it still seems so, Je ne sais quoi...me me me me...the darn thing starts out again to be a conversation with my future adult son! Hey I guess whatever works, right? A bit of self censoring sure, no R rating. I mean you write for your audience, yes? Starts out with complaints about corruption in the non profit world. (Now there's a misnomer as I've seen a lot of profit in the wrong places...) Warnings not to try this at home or DON'T be a social worker or shrink or for that matter an entertainment lawyer.

Lovely wife is under strict request not to show such journals until said child's 18th birthday. Not sure about the point of all this so I hope you don't mind.

best regards and thanks for being here... andy

Thanks, Andy, and I'm sure your son will thank you someday, too. Good luck with all your writing projects

Bill

An excellent idea Andy! My son and daughter are grown and already set in their ways. I think I will do this for my grandchildren since they might derive the most benefit from my considerable wisdom.


Ken

That's a really great idea, and a truely priceless gift for your son. I wish my parents had done this.

Hey Andy,

Which Kibbutz was that?

Take care

Daniel