Wanderlust: The Travel Journal

Travel.

The very word gives me a thrill up one side and down the other.

It's no secret that Sarah and I are {pretty nearly} always battling a case of Wanderlust. In the past year I've gone on quite a few trips, and it seems that this year I'm looking at going on several more. What does this mean?

This means I need a travel journal.

I don't mean a "Today I did this, yesterday I did that, and here's my ticket stub to prove it."

I mean a good solid travel journal. The kind you could sit and flip through and relive the whole experience. I mean anecdotes and scribbles of description and conversation all spattered with ink and sketches, like this artist's notebook from The Weald.

I mean watercolor of a corner of a street in Italy (if I ever get there) or a sketch of a bookstore front in London.  I mean little obscure memories and noticings scrawled into the journal for keeps:

(source)

(source)

I think this one is awesome. Look at the care someone took!

Or this one!

I haven't found a journal yet in which to do all this. I would love a leather-bound journal with many pages of thick creamy paper...unfortunately those are the most expensive kind. :P But whatever kind of journal I do end up owning, I can just imagine sitting in some cafe sketching the people walking by, or the man playing a saxophone in the corner of the Subway in NYC. When traveling, you're always waiting for one thing or another--flights, tickets, food, transportation, entry, etc. So why not spend some of that time writing in your travel journal?

I'm not going to wait for NYC or Europe to do this. I'll start with road trips to places nearby. I'll start with anywhere and everywhere I go, because to prepare for this grand new idea of travel-journaling (and to hone and pick back up my art skills) I am doing a sketch a day for a year. Yes, yes, I know this is a challenge. But I will try my best and give it a go. :) I've done two so far....

Wow. It's been a long time. Obviously there is room for improvement. Neither the book or the teapot is is anyway symmetrical, and yet I love getting back to my drawing. I did miss it. :)

By the time I go anywhere of real importance, I hope to have my artistic skills sharp and clever to record all those wonderful adventures! Any of you keep/have kept a travel journal?

I Can't Even Imagine

I rediscovered how much I love journals today! I was writing in my journal and then flipped back through some of the pages from last year. I was struck over and over by how God has worked in my life, and changed me! (Not just last year, but continually!) Sometimes we can get bogged down in our trials and can't see the forest for the trees. I know that at times, I think: "I am no farther along in His kingdom than I was as a 12 year old!" and yet, in my journal is proof of His mighty hand in my personal life. He was wrought great changes in my life, He has tried the mettle of my heart, and helped me stay faithful to Him, He has blessed me again and again by working things out when I thought that surely it was the end of the world! ;) He is so great!
I was impressed once again to remember that I am merely a player in the best drama in history! And that being said, all will be worked out impressively and perfectly if I could remember to just act the part written for me to play! When I try to improvise....it doesn't work! I have a whole guide-book; a letter written to me to tell me how to walk through this life, and it reminds me constantly that I must trust to the Master to craft my story!



(Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.")

(Psalm 37:5-6 "Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.")

Those are just a couple of the verses that show me over and over, time and again that the One in whom I place my trust is the only One worth having! I will commit my way to Him, and He shall continue to put into place His plan. I'll keep on journaling, and who knows what my God may have done in my life by this time next year? Or the next? Certainly, in my wildest imaginations, I shan't be able to guess how marvelous it really will be! -Rachel