Life Scribbles

I learn to grow as a writer through "travel journaling."

As a young girl, I always wondered what was so special about “travel journaling.” I found out one night in the Caribbean, when the full moon was staring at me from between palm fronds.

But the first time I was ever introduced to a travel journal, I was nine years old, full of energy, and could care less about journaling. Whenever my family went on vacations, I was always so excited to be away from home; a change of scenery meant new adventure and the opportunity to build some sort of crude hideout in back of our campsite. I remember the first time my mom placed the small, orange book in my hands.

 

“It’s a travel journal. You can use it to write about your adventures when we go on vacations as a family.”
I stared at the journal. That little book meant that I had to do writing on vacation. That little book meant that I would be spending time scrawling descriptions of my activities onto paper when I could be romping in the woods or playing “Indians” with my little sister. I shrugged and brushed the idea away and quite forgot about the journal until our next trip.

 

I was packing for our annual two-week family vacation when the journal found me again. We were planning on going to Yellowstone National Park and Teton National Park in Wyoming, and I was particularly excited because we’d never been there before. I was putting my clothes into my duffel when I heard my mom call, “Erin, you can bring your new travel journal on our trip!” I mused over the idea. I would pack it, but maybe I wouldn’t have to use it. My mom would probably forget about it.

The second day of the trip proved me wrong. We were all in the car again after a solid day of driving and a night spent at a hotel. I was staring out the window when my mom strongly suggested that I write in my journal. I grudgingly took out the book and looked at the cover, not wanting to open it. I took my time staring at the pictures of the planes and trains on the cover. I traced the letters of the word “Travels,” which was printed in the center of the cover in jagged, adventurous-looking letters. Little did I know that by opening the cover of the journal, I was starting a different adventure of my own.

My first entry consisted of only a few words written in purple ink. My handwriting was sloppy, partly because I was riding in the car and the occasional bumps and the constant swaying motion made it hard to write, and partly because I really did not want to be writing at the moment and I wanted it to show in my writing. My first entry was,
 

“The inn was very comfortable though our room was very stinky. We found mints on our table in the morning. The first person to get carsick got a mint!”
I felt proud of myself as I shut the book and shoved it as far down into my backpack as it could go. I didn’t see the use in recording such silly details, but I was glad that I had accomplished the feat of “travel journaling.”

 

Throughout the trip, I wrote in my travel journal. Most of the time, it was not because I wanted to; my mom would remind me to write, and I would scribble a few lines about our day’s events. Towards the end of the trip, I started to journal without her reminding me. I would not admit that I was starting to enjoy it, but I couldn’t find anything to dislike about it anymore. Out of habit, at the end of a day, I would grab my journal and write about my day. My entries slowly progressed from, “I saw a buffalo out my window today. I got a picture!” to “Today we went to String Lake to swim. Though the water was more like ice than water, Lauren and I plunged ourselves into the water! Tomorrow is our last day, but I will get to see everybody at home!”

 

When we got back from our trip, my little travel journal got buried under various books in my bookshelf. I didn’t even take time to read through my entries after we got back. I failed to realize the value of that book: it was filled with little memories from our trip that I would have forgotten if I hadn’t written them down. I had no idea how much joy a travel journal could bring.

I started to realize the benefits of the travel journal a few months later. When our family was about to depart for a trip to West Virginia for a week, I was frantically looking for my latest Nancy Drew book (which I could not leave without), when I found the journal again. I stared at it for a few thoughtful moments, wondering if I should pretend I never saw it and hide it under a stack of books. I slipped it into my bag, thinking I wouldn’t even write in it. During the car trip, I decided to take the journal out and look through it. I smiled as I looked through my childish entries, containing few details. The entries lacked the excitement that I had been so full of. The few memories I had managed to include made me laugh, however. I read about our family’s “Fourth of July Celebration” around the campfire, when we tried to roast biscuit dough on sticks over the fire and most of it dripped off and made sizzling sounds. I closed the book and thought to myself, “Maybe there really is value in journaling.”

 

During that vacation, my travel journal and I became acquainted. The second day of our trip, I remember slipping into my room in our rental cabin and taking the book out of my backpack. I filled two pages with the previous day’s events. I took care to make my writing neat (while reading through my first entries, I wished I hadn’t written like a Neanderthal and used that annoying purple pen) and I included lots of details about our day. I wrote about the time we left our house for our vacation, I described the appearance of the restaurant where we ate, and I listed every song we listened to on the jukebox while we were eating our meal there. I felt very satisfied with myself as I put my journal in the drawer of the bedside table. I had filled an entire two pages of a travel journal without being told. That was a feat I hadn’t accomplished before.

 

The rest of the week, my sister and I would spend at least fifteen minutes a day journaling. We would set aside time to lie on our beds in our bedroom and journal. My mom took a picture of us, sprawled out on our beds, looking studious as we were bent over our journals, pens clutched firmly in our hands, brows furrowed in concentration. I looked forward to the time I had laying in the quiet, telling my journal all about what I had done that day. One day, I wrote,

“We just got back from the swimming pool. Mommy is in the kitchen making macaroni and cheese. I’m in my quiet bedroom, writing on my bed. After lunch, we will be taking a hike to Black Water Falls. I’m itching to get on the trail! Lauren and I discovered a ditch. It has no water, just muck and leaves, and boulders. Lauren and I pretended it was a raging river, and we had to get across it before we fell in. Time for lunch.”
 
The memory I captured in that entry was valuable and I didn’t even know it. I didn’t know that I would look back on that entry and smile, remembering how great our imaginations were. If I hadn’t written about our pretend “raging river,” I probably would have forgotten about it. At the time, I still hadn’t come to the full realization that, in journaling, I’m capturing my life on paper. I can relive moments when I read my entries.

 

For the next few years, my travel journal became my constant companion as my family traveled around the country. It went with me to South Carolina, Wisconsin, and New York. When my parents announced that we would be going to the Carribbean one summer in 2006, my travel journal was one of the first things I packed. I couldn’t wait to fill it with new memories.

In that week in the Carribbean, I wrote like never before. I didn’t just write about the day’s activities; I wrote about the way the water sparkled and how I felt about it. One of my entries described a sailboat ride over the clear blue water:

“If the sailboat glided over a shallow section of the water, I could look down and see the sandy ocean floor, and boulders in various places. Their shapes quivered, changing their appearances, making me guess weather I was looking at a boulder or a sea turtle.”

 

I felt good about my entries, because they were filled with sensory details that enriched my writing. I had managed to exclude the silly, unimportant details like the ones that had filled my entries the years before (I looked back on my first two-paged entry and laughed at the fact I had described the appearance of an insignificant restaurant).

 

On our last night in the Caribbean, I sat on the porch of our rental house and wrote my last entry of that little travel journal. There were only a few pages left; I had filled the book up with memories from all my vacations. Before I wrote the last pages, I read through the entries from my week in the Caribbean. I was reminded of all the fun my family had together that week and a half, and all the things we’d seen and done. I was suddenly so grateful for the journal that allowed me to capture these things so I could remember them forever. I closed my journal and I breathed in the warm sea breeze that was blowing through the palm trees which stood around the porch. I looked over the railing of the porch and looked at the lights of the boats in the bay, and I stared up at the full moon which hung in the sky. It was truly a perfect moment. I wished that I could remember it always, and then I laughed to myself. I could remember it always! I took out my pen and began to write.

 

 “I sit here on the deck of Island Breeze (that is the name or our rental house), watching the moon play hide-and-seek with the clouds in the deep, blue, night sky. An orchestra of tree frogs serenade me as I remember the events of the past week and a half. I’ve gone snorkeling in the ocean, and seen a delicate angelfish dart behind a sea fan like a China woman hiding behind her fan. I ate a chicken “rotie” at a carnival. I rode on the prow of a sailboat, being escorted by flying fish. And I saw sea turtles; beautiful, wonderful sea turtles. I swam with them and dove with them, and became their friends. The Caribbean will always hold a special place in my heart—its mountains, and its aqua, clear oceans, the fish, the turtles, and the little lizards. I will never forget the things I experienced here, and I’ll hope to come back some day.”
 

So this is why there are travel journals, I thought. I felt like I had really finished my adventure; both in seeing the Caribbean and in writing about it. The sense of satisfaction as a writer set in, and I felt like I could take away all the memories I needed from this vacation. As I sat on that porch of our rental house, I wondered what other adventures were in store for me. I knew that with those adventures came new opportunities to capture the memories in a whole new way.

 

So my mom really knew what she was doing by giving me my travel journal. Thank goodness for mothers.

 

Author's Note

This was a school assingment I enjoyed quite a lot. :)

Reviews

[Cherry Chapstick]

great piece of writing, Erin! You caused me to bring my travel journal on my last vacation! Keep it up!