We’ve all been there. Stuck for a Christmas gift idea! The person in question doesn’t seem to need anything – at least nothing that one would equate as a gift; although my sister once gave my dad a mouse trap as a gift when she was about 8 years old and overheard dad saying that there had been a mouse in the garage.
For the older person it can be a place to write down memories of times gone by. A place to recall loved ones and bring them back to life by sharing stories about the little things that happened, the saying they had, their faults and follies, dreams and aspirations. Local history can be recorded; the names of fields saved for future generations, recipes and cures passed on. Their childhood recalled – one that is so different to now.
You see, history is not just about the big events but also the hundreds of little things that seem mundane at the time but are true glimpses into the past for other generations. It is the very fact that they are considered mundane, ordinary & no different to anyone else’s life that family history & stories are easily overlooked and before we know it, gone and forgotten FOR-EVER!
A journal is not just about the past but also a place to write about our current experiences, to reflect and think things out. A pen & paper are marvellous tools for getting perspective.
As for children – well they can dream up their futures in their journal. They can create characters and escape into other worlds. Children really have so little control over their lives, but in their journal they are masters of their destiny! A journal can be a great place to figure out life, a safe place to vent their frustrations, to dream and then discard those dreams before dreaming it all up again.
Writing in a journal is not about having perfect spelling and following the rules of grammar. It can have drawings & doodles with newspaper clippings & photographs. It can have codes and made up language.
As the years go by, journals become our time machines. We can travel back in time. Our minds have the ability to conjure up people and places we thought were long forgotten, simply by reading about them again. Journals become our personal time capsule. I was reminded to this today when I took out my cookbooks, looking for Christmas Recipes and there were my Auntie Maura’s and my Granny’s handwritten family favourites and in that instant it was as if they were with me.
There is a line in a song by the Irish band The Fat Lady Sings and it says “We don’t leave ourselves in many things, just in letter, leases, writs and rings, And when the last one’s sold or lost or gone, we don’t belong here, we don’t belong”.
A journal is about the good and not so good things that we have experienced. It’s about life. Our life. Record that life in the gift of a journal. Maybe give yourself a journal. You are here, you matter! Write!
Wishing all of our readers, Hummingbirds and Hummingbird families a wonderful, easy Christmas and a Totally Awesome New Year!
See you in 2016. E
Elaine Sparling is the CEO of the award winning Hummingbird Learning Centre®. Based in Adare, Co Limerick and Tralee, Co Kerry, she works with clients on a one to one basis and can be contacted on 087-2996054 or through their website www.hummingbirdlearning.com. They have also launched the online version of their popular workshop The Secrets to Successful Spelling™ which is available through their website and Facebook page
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