A Writing Penseive

I apologize for the lack of posts for the last week and a half. Quite frankly, it’s been a tough week. Today God stepped in before the pressure blew and gave me a sub job with lots of time to write in my journal. The kids were reading quietly in reading class as it is the last day before finals so the teacher and I both sat at our desks in silence and another class had a video going on Martin Luther King Jr. as well as working on a more artistic assignment that included drawing. Two other classes also included a game so the biggest task I had for the day until grading tests after school was to keep score for the game. In one class, a boy couldn’t come up with a team name so the teacher went with what he said, “I don’t know.” The other half of the class then chose their team name: “We Know”. “We Know” won.

If you’ve read Harry Potter, you will understand the following reference. Dumbledore has a pensieve, a basin into which he puts the thoughts and memories in his head. He takes his wand and they go on there like mercury and then he pours them out into the basin to lighten his load, to have a place to keep his thoughts to be available later. I love this idea for that is what my journal is like for me. I can tell when I haven’t written in my journal for a while because I start feeling just like a pressure cooker and I am more quickly angry or upset. I have all these thoughts inside swirling around and my heart and mind start to feel extremely crowded and suffocating. It is then I have to take my journal out and write away or I’ll go nuts. Perhaps it is also like cleaning a room. Everything is jumbled up and spilled all over the floor- the garbage, books, clothes, paper, and dishes. It’s a wreck and a hard place in which to find anything. Journal writing is like coming along with a trash bag and picking up all the garbage. Then you pick up all the dishes, load them into the dish washer and start it. The laundry goes in the washer and the books get put back on the shelves and the papers are filed away. Then you go through the room and dust, then vacuum, and finally you light a candle in prayer. It is now a room you can relax in, find peace in, and enjoy. It feels good to at least be picking up the room.