Journal Entries

Coming home on Southwest Airlines flight 2205 from Dallas to Midland after attending an Elected Officials Conference in Austin, I dug into my backpack, and dug into it again, and emptied the contents on the empty seat beside me, before finally admitting to myself that I left my journal on the table in front of Harlon’s Barbeque in the Austin Bergstrom Airport while waiting for my flight to Dallas. I wrote a couple of pages in it in Austin, didn’t have time between flights to write in Dallas, and now, it’s gone. In ten years of journal writing, this is the first one I’ve ever lost.

It’s a yellow-band Moleskine squared notebook, 240 pages, 13×21 centimeters, acid-free paper, and expandable inner pocket. My name and address are written in the front of the journal; I guess it’s probably about 4/5 full of writing. I’ve typed up most of the pages and stored them on multiple hard drives, so the actual data loss was small. Still, yet, it’s gone.

So here I am making my first entry in a new journal book, identical to the one I lost except that it’s empty, writing about what I lost on my trip to Austin, instead of writing about what I found.

I could be writing about how Cyndi and I got up at 6:45 AM Saturday and Sunday mornings so we could have plenty of time to drive ten miles down MOPAC and park under the bridge and run around Town Lake. If we’d decided to run in the Arboretum neighborhood instead of Town Lake we probably could have slept another hour and still had time to make our appointments, but that would’ve been nothing but a workout. Instead, we had an energizing meditative adventure.

Or I could be writing about Cyndi and I taking an afternoon nap under the giant down comforter, finally able to relax and not worry about phone calls or appointments or to-do lists, but in fact we didn’t really sleep very much so there wouldn’t be enough to write about.

Or I could be writing about going to the Mosaic worship service in downtown Austin and letting Pastor Don and his roomful of youngsters speak wisdom into my heart, and how even as an outsider I’m drawn to what they’re doing and what they’re saying.

Or I could be writing about a workshop I attended titled “Your Re-Election Decision: Factors to Consider,� and how it was a better presentation than I expected and how the panel spoke to the heart of the reason I serve in local government. But when the panel finished and they opened for Q&A, one person after another stood to say, “I don’t have a question but I’d like to make a comment,� and proceeded to tell everyone about their particular situation that sounded like what we’d already heard. One of the dangers of leadership is forgetting to ask questions, only making comments, because, I guess, we think we’ve already learned all we need to know.

I could be writing about my afternoon run down Barton Creek Greenbelt and how running on dirt makes me happy and how a two-hour out-and-back seemed like only minutes, but I’ve written about dirt and running a lot already.

I could write about how even though I was in Austin three days I failed to hook up with my brother who lives there, because, while I had plenty of free moments, they were unscheduled and unpredictable. Yet, since Carroll moved to Austin last summer, we’ve talked more than ever before, and I’m happy about the deepening of our relationship, and sorry that I missed seeing him.

I could write about going to the Sports Authority store, in Northcross Shopping Center, where the day before, 2,500 people wearing red shirts and holding hands had demonstrated against the construction of a Super Wal-Mart. To my eyes, the aging shopping center was in dire need of new energy, but the demonstrators were worried a Wal-Mart it would change their neighborhood forever. The Austin American Statesman quoted one protestor as saying, “I had my first kiss at this mall; I don’t want to see it go.� I don’t blame them for fighting change, but it’s easy to protest a project when you don’t have any of your own money or sweat invested.

I could write about how I want my life to become more like Jesus, but like those protestors, I’d prefer if the changes were small ones, and didn’t cost me anything.

I could write about all the journal pages I lost and how maybe the thoughts will come back to my memory and I can reproduce them or maybe they’re lost forever. Surprisingly, at the moment, the loss doesn’t hurt as bad as I would’ve expected.

I’m a pilgrim, and my journal notes are nothing more than souvenirs gathered along the way. A pilgrim is not something you do, or something you write … but it’s who you are. Maybe I’ll write about that in my new Moleskine.