A Funny Little Story

Since my last post had to do with Prince Edward Island, I thought I'd continue with a humorous anecdote that involved one of the Islanders. Maybe I can tie it into the whole Rambling With A Purpose idea.After I wrote that post I tried to follow my own advice and do more RWAPing in my own journaling, so here is a small portion of the result. Mark you, it is coming straight from my journal....

We took the scenic route up to Cavendish, and on the way stopped by in a small fishing harbor. Sitting on a porch was an old man with a white beard, pure white, making some sort of netting. We got out to stretch our legs, and [my dad] walked over to the fellow, who was wearing an old baseball cap.

"Whatcha making?" asked [my dad].

"Oh, yaknow, shoppin' bags," said the old fellow, showing us one of his creations. It was basically a drawstring bag made of yellow netting.
"I'm old, and I got nothin' to do, so I make these shoppin' bags."
The old man looked so picturesque that my dad pulled out the camera.

"You mind if I take a photo?" he asked.

The old man immediately whipped off his baseball cap and pulled on an old sailor's hat - one of those black oily ones that fishermen wear. The result was a classic photo.




"Oho!" said my dad. "I see you're ready for the pictures!"

"We got lots of people comin' here, from all ova the bloody world," replied the man. "They take a picture with me, and then I never see them again... but no problem... no problem..."

We walked a little ways up a small dirt road that ran down the beach.

"Does that road go through all the way?" [my mom] asked.

"Oh yeah. You're fine there. That's a fine road. A fine road. I've driven on it for seventy years, and - no problem, no problem."

"But will it take me to the main road?"

"Oh no problem. It's a fine road. It'll take you any where you want to go, no problem."

He became contemplative, and said, "Yaknow this lake? When I was young, you could ride with a car on the ice, no problem, it was so thick. But now, even in the middle of winter you can boat out to the middle."

"It's getting warmer every year," said my mother.

"Yep, getting warmer. And in the summer, you could lay in the sun and you'ld get - yaknow, you'ld get - blisters - blisters from the sun," - here he rubbed his arm descriptively - "But now, you can lay out in the sun all day in the summer, and ya need to put on an overcoat. Ya need to put on an overcoat..."

"Well, thanks for the picture. Have a nice day."

"Ah, you too, have a nice day... no problem."

Rambling with a Purpose

I had a nice talk with my mom about the art of journaling some time ago, so I thought I would turn it into a blog post.

There are two kinds of rambling. Generally, rambling has no point or purpose. It has no central topic around which the "ramble" rambles. It just sort of goes.... and goes... leading from one thing to another... until.... you reach the end.... which is a completely different subject than the beginning.
This is how I write in my journal. This is how most people write in their journals. Or blogs - there are lots of blogs with purposeless rambling.

Then there is Rambling With A Purpose (RWAP?). The subtitle of this blog is "Reviews, Recommendations, and Ramblings about Books and Literature." I intend the word "ramblings" here to mean RWAP-ing. :-) I like to think of each of my posts as a little essay, each with a particular topic, from which I may deviate only slightly. Take this post, for example. I am currently rambling with a purpose on Rambling With A Purpose.
What I mean is that it has to have structure. An essay has structure - everyone knows that. Introduction, Support, Conclusion. I try to do that with my posts here - though I do give myself more freedom than I would if I were writing a school paper. With journaling, it's the same. A journal entry might not have a defined "thesis" like an essay would; it would have more of a short story feel. But short stories still need to have a purpose.

In my 11th grade English class, I read an excerpt from William Least Heat-Moon's biographical book Blue Highways. In it, he tells of his experiences on a road trip across the States. It was wonderfully written, and I always mean to read the full book - I just haven't gotten around to it. Heat-Moon is a wonderful example of a master of the art of journaling, which is another name for RWAP. The book (or at least the excerpt that I read) is a series of anecdotes, each one separate from the next, and yet somehow neatly flowing from one to the other. Each one is like a really short short story that tells of something generally inconsequential, and yet, somehow, meaningful. Heat-Moon's descriptive powers are spectacular, and this is definitely a contributing factor, but what makes his work so memorable is his way of isolating everyday occurrences and endowing them with importance.
This - the art of making minor occurrences grand and glorious, yet without taking away their simplicity - is the essence of journaling. This is the essence of Rambling With A Purpose.

The fault with so many "tween" books today (and "teen" ones as well) that attempt to portray realistic tween and teen life is that the writing just becomes one big ramble - without any purpose at all. I highly dislike contemporary books marketed particularly to tweens just because of this reason. (And also because they never actually discuss realistic tween life, but that's for another time.)

I do keep a journal, though rather sporadically, and when I was younger, I used to wonder if, when I was a rich and famous writer, anyone would publish my musings. Then I read it, and knew for sure that would never happen. No one would ever read it. It was extraordinarily boring. I decided that must be just because I had an extremely boring and normal life, and left it at that.

But in reality - I do belive it was because I just didn't know how to journal with a purpose. My entries were all purposeless ramblings. I didn't know how to extract from my day those meaningful - yet externally meaningless - occurrences that were the essence of my day. Frankly, I still don't. It takes a really good writer to be able to do that. But I'm definitely trying, and I hope that in time, I will get better.

On a somewhat related note, do any of you keep a journal? If you do, how do you manage to write consistently? It seems like I only write twice or three times a year now! (Hmmm... I better go write an entry after I post this - I think I last wrote in February.)

~Sophia