Flaming Books.

This is a blip from the warm. It is not very exciting visually, but it poses a question:

Diaries, journals. What do we do with them? I have been keeping one on and off since I was 19. It became easier when i discovered Moleskine notebooks. Nice little elastic bands to keep the handbag rubbish from filling the pages, and in a handy size. Much better than returning to a big black notebook at the day's end.

The joy of a journal is grabbing the moment and putting it down before the feeling or idea wears off.

I was sitting with some of my family one evening four years ago. The subject of my journals came up. One member said they would burn them. Another agreed.
I was stunned. They are part of me, I made them, as i did my children, but with a lot more thought. Nativity is auto after all.
We talked it through a bit more and I went to bed in a bit of a mood.
The next time I went to write, I saw flames on the pages.
It had gone. My urge to put down moments like when i thought I was guarding a bomber's luggage when he 'went to the loo', or was on an empty beach where Coleridge was inspired to write the Ancient Mariner, had vanished. It would not come.

My son, a few weeks later said he would love to read them, and wanted to know me more through these pages. A close friend also said the same. But the urge has not returned in the same way. I no longer write 2 or more a year.

Two such different attitudes to the same little notebooks. Some friends have said they would get rid of theirs, maybe for different reasons. It is not as simple as it seems.
Maybe the Leaving of our diaries needs as much thought as of ordinary Valuable Things.

There is some clutter on the bookcase. The paper behind this selection of my notebooks was pressed in Venice. As were the glass sweets blown.