Purple irises jog a journal memory

Before I started blogging in August of 2005, I would write in composition books. I would create a cover for the book, then ponder on it for a theme to guide my writing. Sometimes it would be the other way around: I'd select a theme, then design a cover to reflect it. In October of 2001, purple irises splashed across my journal cover.The cover idea had struck before the theme.

In the words below, I describe how I came to choose the theme that guided me as I filled the pages during the following months. I had designed the cover of the book using a calendar page of purple irises, highlighted in glossy fabric paint, and in the top right corner, I had placed a little 2 inch square picture of a window with lavendar curtains moving gently. As I stared at the cover, I wondered at what I would write on the pages. I always loved starting a new journal.

Blank pages are like a new day. This website journal does not allow me to present it in the same poem format I had originally written in without large line spaces you see below. I don't know how to work around that, so I changed the format somewhat. It doesn't detract from the words.

 

A new book!

Empty pages waiting to give birth, expectant of yet unknown joys.

Hopes and dreams, yes, and fears and sorrows all,

All to begin here.

 

A new beginning!

What theme will guide this searching soul?

What words will carry me to my future to become one day words from my past?

What will I tell the me of tomorrow, who will one day look back at the yesterday me with greater understanding?

The truth is all.

 

A morning glow breaks through the window now.

Curtains gently move by unseen breath.

What does it mean to enjoy a bed of purple irises?

I don't understand even now these images, yet in a way I do.

Intuition chooses the window, eyes choose the purple; a part of me understands

And now I know the theme breaking through my mind,

streaking to my fingertips and down the pen's barrel.

 

Waiting.   Praying.   Walking.

 

B.Gilmore 11-14-01

 

That year was a year of waiting and praying and walking with the Lord. It was my third year as a teacher. It was a remarkable year for I knew what I did was not by my own power. I need another year like that... of waiting on the Lord, praying to the Lord, and walking with the Lord.