Summary Of On Keeping A Notebook By Joan Didion

I used to hoard journals. They were beautiful; crisp lined pages on eggshell paper, leather-bound covers, the promise to hold something interesting and utterly unique to the person writing in it. The grittiness of the raw word, the aesthetically pleasing way black ink seeped and curved across the page, even the very concept that somebody’s most intimate possession could be created with only paper and pen and preserved forever...it all spoke to me on an artistic level beyond my own comprehension. I didn’t begin writing in my own journal until 7th grade, when the world seemingly had one motive: to make me feel as self-conscious, awkward, and out of place as possible. I’d envisioned getting older as a magic potion that would …show more content…
I have lost somebody who didn’t love me, but they have lost somebody who loved them.” When I read Joan Didion’s piece, “On Keeping a Notebook”, I knew that I could use my writing as a device that would enable me to see the world more clearly, to “remember what it was to be me: that is always the point.” My journal became a place of self-discovery; it was no longer just a collection of adolescent thoughts, but a volume of emotional and intellectual curiosity that was deeply personal. Sometimes, I’d write pages about an argument with a friend that left me wounded; other times, I’d question American policy, religion, and social justice issues: November 8th, 2014, “Went out with Lucy last night and her dad said that wearing skirts in the city is like driving without a seatbelt. There is no ‘female privilege’; this is survival of the prettiest.” My interest in When Eric Garner was pronounced dead after being choked by a police officer, I grappled with my faith in the New York Police Department, wondering desperately why some of the very people enlisted to protect civilians were doing exactly the …show more content…
I think that the worst loneliness is to be uncomfortable with yourself; by creating an environment in which my thoughts and beliefs never had to be standardized, I stomped on that discomfort and turned it into something beautiful and creative and authentic and meaningful. When an obscure online magazine published a journal entry I’d written detailing my struggle to maintain a positive body image, my friends wrote me to tell me it moved them, lessening the shame I felt. By junior year, after filling 10+ journals, I found myself thinking, “If people resonate with my writing, it has to be important. It has to mean