I am so excited to begin! I’ve spent several years inspired by the words and images of others. Reading blogs and online journals as others might read the newspaper with breakfast has allowed me to begin my days feeling connected to people in faraway places. I’ve kept screen shots and made notes in my journals to remind me of what I’ve learned.
When my husband and I began planning our retirement we had many discussions about where we would like to live and after months of driving around, traipsing across acres of land, and peering through fences at city lots, we decided to move from our apartment in a 100 year old bank building on the Buffalo Bayou in the heart of the historical district of Houston to almost an acre of land in the Texas Hill Country just outside of San Antonio.
I am a first generation Texan. My grandparents on both sides moved here from New York and Pennsylvania to work in the booming Texas oil industry of the 1950’s. Most Texans know and love the Hill Country, often packing a picnic and driving down the highway to see the wildflowers in the spring. We had family in San Antonio and had often visited the “Heart of Texas”. My sister and I traveled to Fredericksburg regularly, saving the last dollar we had in our purses when we got home. Later, when one of us wanted to travel to Fredericksburg again, she would pull out her dollar and say, it’s sister time, let’s go!
So, after 18 months of driving around and walking the land we stepped onto the piece of Texas that would become our forever home. I knew this was the place almost immediately. I could feel the gentle slope and the levels of the land. There were limestone layers and rocks everywhere I looked. Low hills surrounded the site and on one side was a ravine or an arroyo. It was so quiet I could hear myself breathing. Within minutes we were back in the developer’s trailer signing papers!
Nearly a year later construction began on the house. Every weekend we would pack up a cooler of breakfast tacos and sandwiches and drive out to watch the work and walk the land. Every time we went we picked up interesting rocks, wrapped them up, and put them in our trunk. My husband was the first to find a fossil. It looked like a little cinnamon roll to me! We have a glass box table in the living room now, filled with the rocks and fossils found on the land, and a giant Texas vulture feather so strong you could dip it in ink and use it as a quill pen. The vultures and eagles are a feature of the place, swooping and gliding on the currents in the canyons; more about this in later entries.
So, why write a blog? So many reasons come to mind…I have always written in little black books. My first was an insurance calendar my dad gave to me the summer before I went to fifth grade. This calendar and some gold tipped colored pencils in a plastic box fueled my need to record and remember. I think when you write things down, sketch, photograph, record what you are thinking and doing you become more aware of the essence of each moment. Things you might have seen quickly and moved past have greater meaning and value. I think I will begin today and, “From Deep in the Heart,” make a record of our life and adventures, the places we go, the things we do, our discoveries and awakenings. With these words, I hope to hold all the wonder in place and make connections to others who might read my words, smile to themselves and say, yes, I know what she means, or yes, I might try that too!
Before retiring recently I dedicated myself to teaching. I had a wonderful life as an educator of middle school students and later, in a university as professor and dean sharing what I had learned with people who would take my place in K-12 classrooms. My specialty was literacy; reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and visually representing thoughts and ideas.
At the beginning of each middle school year I gave my students a spiral notebook to write in. Later, at the university, I showed my students my own journals and asked them to choose what they wanted to write in during the semester. The second day of class we shared what we were going to use and began writing. Students wrote about what they were reading, wearing, eating, about dreams and aspirations, fears, overheard conversations, travels, families, music…life. Even reluctant writers found pleasure in writing, drawing, pasting in mementos, and otherwise recording pieces of the life they were living.
I will always remember one middle school student, Andy. He was a seventh grader who waved his journal in the air and declared joyfully, “I’m going to have a whole room of these one day!” Years later when I was working at the university and he was living in another state he contacted me to let me know he was still journaling! I keep some of my small journals together in a secret cabinet inside my desk. I like to put them in with the pages facing out…black and white like print on a page.
Recently, I re-read an entry in a journal I wrote during a trip to Washington, D.C. in 2010 and I think it captures one of the reasons people journal, blog, or otherwise record thoughts and images. I wrote, “The last time we were here was 1999 when I was granted a one year leave of absence from middle school to do my doctoral residency at the university. I am amazed at how much I remember. It made quite a visual and directional memory, impact upon me and there have been many times during this visit when I felt I was looking at something I had seen the day before rather than 11 years before.”
I think journals, blogs, Instagram sites, or other ways of keeping a visual and written record can be quite beautiful and personal. My husband also keeps journals and I got the idea of making a mini-collage of artifacts from a site or a day from him. Here are some photos of sketches, collages, and the like from my paper journals.
I want to recreate and build upon the art of journaling with my blog “fromdeepintheheart.com”.
Although this will be something of an explorational journey for me, I hope you enjoy the experience of reading my blog.
