Notebook of Dreams

On daring to write

A generous pile of notebooks sit on my desk, they are ordered from largest to smallest. The spine of the bottom book, perhaps the oldest of all, is not yet dog-eared or faded. It is blue and gold, bright and bold and full of dreams. 

With its hedgehog printed cover and soft pink pages, this book is a story of missed chances and affirmations—a timeline of hope, a kind of penned record of the evolution of an ever-shifting self. 

Each page is a year, circled and bound like a slice of time with a beginning and an end. Doodles of ambitions hold plans that spin out like spider legs or the twisted tendrils of unfurling ferns. 

It has been a long time since I ran my fingers over the matt cover of my hopes. This week I removed the notebook from the pile, turned back the cover and began to search. I read each page seeking clues to why, why despite the risk and the exposure I feel compelled to write.

I thumb back to 2015. Between the margins, in handwriting unsure and unkempt, I see I didn't dream of writing. I dreamt of being brave enough to write. 'To write' rolled on in 2016, 2017, and 2018. Each year it occupied the same north-western corner of the page, each year it was inked in black, not vivid enough for colour, not large enough to be true. 

'To write’ two simple words, yet they are not. In the words of my journals I find my place in the world, it stretches out as a marriage of thoughts and ideas. I think of the letters my parents kept when I left school and travelled the world, stamped and enveloped they are a bag of memories. And yet, this is different, this is driven by something more. 

I read back through the pages. 

In 2019, I journaled about my wedding. 

Then I got cancer. 

Then I got brave. 

No more affirmations. 

No more entries.

Blank.

In 2020, I started to write. I blogged out my tears and penned my sadness, but I couldn't find the words. I didn't want to; I was too afraid that the act of writing would make them real, like a Ouija board calling the spirits.

In tear-smudged ink, I write.

'Have you ever been too scared to look inside? Have you ever felt your raspy breath constrict the V-shaped voice box that connects thoughts and body? This is me.'

I journal my way through medication and emptiness, writing of the landscape and the beauty of my garden. I photograph birds and the new tree growth and describe footpaths, old memories and past adventures.

I write deep in mossy forests, on the Cairngorms plateau, and in places that used to make me feel safe. I risk frostbite to write under the pale pink light of the midnight sun, searching for myself in the gaps between words. In snatched moments, I pen journal entries, postcards, and handwritten letters. I write for the glacier, the sun and the storm.  

2020, 2021, 2022, 2023: There were no lists, no affirmations, 1460 dreamless days. But there were words, thousands of them and dreams that formed in fragments. 

I write the opening chapters of a book at least eight times, re-order and re-edit. I open wounds, dress and undress the truth, and wrap beauty around rawness. I cry for days when I am told the world does not need another cancer story. 

Each morning, I journal in bed as the east-facing headstones in the old churchyard are bathed at sunrise. I try to find my voice amongst the blackbirds and lush grasses. I cannot call with the crows; I dare only hush with the breeze.

I share my first post, hold my breath and doubt myself. I enter competitions and study the words of others. I live between piles of books and shelves of notes, I write of adventures and let the landscape transform me. 

Through my words I hear my voice grow. While wondering and wavering about what I can offer this world, I ruminate on the arrogance of wanting to be heard. 'To write' is no longer my affirmation or ambition, it does not need to take up space or occupy a corner of the page; it is me, etched in my bones.

This week, in a moment drenched in perceived failure, I am reminded by those dearest to me that I am chasing a dream. I am still a dream seeker, an affirmation maker, a planner and what a privilege that is, for who would we be without hope? 

I open the hedgehog book, draw a circle around 2024 and let the tendrils unfurl.