My First Journal

In January of 1996, I walked into a grocery store in Shrewsbury, MA with my father and my sister. I was seventeen . I don’t recall where exactly the store was, why we where there, or what we bought while there, save one item. The first journal I ever owned.

I remember walking down the aisle with the school supplies and glancing down at the notebooks lined up on display. I looked quickly over the spirals and spotted the familiar black and white marbled cover of PenTab Composition Books. I leaned over to pick one up and held it in my hands.

I remember the way it felt. The cover, nothing more than cardboard, felt new and exciting. Inside lay 100 blank blue-lined pages ready to be filled with all of the brilliance my seventeen year-old mind cared to impress upon them¹. I imagined that I would make quick work of this Composition Book, and many more just like it to come.

The price, $3.99 I believe, was just right, so I secured this new treasure with the excitement I usually reserved for book or video game purchases. I carried the journal out of the store with the adrenaline of excitement and possibility. This was the beginning of something significant, I told myself.

Later that night, I marked the composition book as my own. On the first line, I wrote my name, Brandon D. Satrom. On the second, I wrote the following line:

Let the Good Times Roll.

I think I was listening to a BB King song of that same name when I wrote that. Maybe it was someone else, or maybe I wasn’t listening to anything. In any case, it seemed fitting. I thought that the beginning of journaling was the beginning of good times.²

A few days later, I wrote my first entry. January 6th, 1996 to be exact. It was on an American Airlines flight with my sister back to San Antonio, TX (Where we lived) from Boston, MA (Where  my father lives). I remember opening the journal with my pen in hand and staring for a few moments at the first page.

No words. Nothing.

I didn’t know what to say. So I figured I’d copy a few lines out of a book I was reading at the time³ as a way to get me started.

That didn’t work, so I drew a squiggly line beneath the quote and a silly title for what was to be my first entry, and started talking about inspiration and ambition before drawing an artist’s rendering of a wormhole and writing what could be called my first poem⁴. The pictures above and below should give you a general idea, just don’t expect larger versions of these photos if you click on them. It’s for your own protection.

And on two pages, that was my first journal entry in my first journal, just over twelve years ago. It wasn’t anything monumental or magical, but it was the beginning of something. Many things actually. Most importantly, it was the beginning of journaling itself, which is my anchor as a writer, whether I am journaling in response to my faith, writing play-by-play recaps of who knows what, madly trying to capture story ideas before I lose them, or scribbling intelligent-sounding things just to see the sound of my own voice, which my wife could tell you I am quite fond of. It’s a little bit of all of that and more for me.

I have much more to say about journaling and it’s purpose in writing, but I’ll save all of those for another day. For now, I just wanted to share another piece of who I am with you.

Thanks for listening.

- B

While writing this, I was listening to “Strip My Mind” by Red Hot Chili Peppers

1. And when I was seventeen, I was convinced that this mind held a lot of brilliance…
2. Who am I kidding? This is a silly title for a journal. I still laugh at it when I see it, but you should see what I put on the cover of my second composition book. For another day…
3. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau… I’m not kidding. This is also another story for another day
4. but not by me