Journaling differently

So, here I am...journaling publicly...strange situation...I've written hundreds of note-books over the years, and destroyed most of them regularly...that was part of the therapy...but even if the paper is burnt, some things are still painful...so let's try something else...
It all started with Sisabeille working on shapes with her French friends...the triangle, the knife, the scissors, the scalpel...i was in my room, turning this into my head...i couldn't sleep...i felt i had to do something...and it came...this "art-journal"...didn't fancy the word though...
In my favorite on-line dictionary I read this:

ART
Etymology:
Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin art-, ars — Date: 13th century
1: skill acquired by experience, study, or observation
2 : a branch of learning:
3: an occupation requiring knowledge or skill
4 a: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; b:also : works so produced

That was comforting...I could now say : I'm building, making my artist-journal , art-journal or ...
I wanted to find a "thread"...not difficult...the idea of the puzzle has been in my mind for years...
The first pages are what they are...a beginning...sure I will find other versions later...
The very interesting thing is this: when you are used to journaling with your pen, your copy-book, you are used to write, work very quickly...words are flowing, often very painfully , but if it's not well written, i mean in correct words and with a beautiful hand-writing it's not important...evacuating is the priority...
Painting, drawing, in a psychiatric hospital bedroom is also very different...you just "vomit" colours and lines...not to suffocate...at least that's how i fell...
But here it was a quite different thing: express yourself with pictures in public...there was the idea of communication...communicating with other people...making yourself understood...or trying to...it's neither easier nor more difficult...just very deeply different...
So here I am now...quite new and 61 years young...with plenty free time and my small but sufficient pension...the best situation...
lucky me !!!
I gave myself a new name, some time ago, thanks to some great"Wild women "...I left the group, but go on with the "work" ...I had to start doing it French...I had to stop hiding behind English language, using the excuse: I can't do it, I don't have the words...In French I have no excuse...
For a few weeks I didn't work much on my English blogs , I couldn't find the words...I thought I couldn't be English AND French ...but now all is well, I realized my native language is French, and my second chosen one is English...I allowed myself not to chose...
Claudine could become Peaceful, Paisible...

Journaling in a different way

With my friends from the forum Mixed-Media France I 'm trying to draw and make and build a journal...it's supposed to be called art-journal...but i find difficult to use that word...it's not really art for me...i mean MINE isn't art...just a way of trying to express myself differently...and really it's very very useful, though it's very painful at times...
so here are my first pages...

from Claudine to Peaceful...

that's the front cover...Peaceful Mousie is wondering : will she succeed in making the puzzle of her life...will she find all the pieces...every time she will make a page, she will get a piece of the puzzle...

At the very beginning I was a happy little girl, with hundreds girl friends, eight in fact, and dozens close friends, one in fact...but there was the little blue bowl with poppies, and every day i used to sit with the others at school and have a bowl of soup...the soup my mum made ...teacher mum who knew so many nice stories...that was long ago, before i turned six, before i became the lonely little girl...

That's long gone years...but still so painful...i was such a lonely little girl...no friends...girls used to go to church school, boys to state one...i was all alone with the boys...my parents were teachers in the state school...the priest said i was the devil's girl...at sunday school girls used to sit on the left, boys on the right...i was all alone in the middle on a chair...no girl friends...

I thought everything was going to change, everything was going to be better...freedom, love, peace, all the dreams we made were surely get true...I was only twenty two...I'm sixty one now, and didn't see much difference...except in family life may be people talk a bit more easily...but where is peace...

This will be the back-cover of the journal...it's a photo I made, moving the camera very quickly and a text from Rilke..."Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers. "...I love that quote...on the left side some pieces of the puzzle...don't know if I will complete it...