Every Entry Was Practice By Katherine Emery General

My college degree is in Liberal Studies with a concentration in English Literature and Psychology, so there was a lot of writing involved. I was thrilled when I earned an A on my papers after long nights of reading, thinking, and writing. I can still picture the margins of those essays filled with my professors’ comments, careful handwriting, arrows pointing to paragraphs, small notes of encouragement or challenge. Over time, though, I erased most of their words from my memory. I respected them deeply, yet I always questioned my own ability as a writer.

When my children were babies, I wrote little anecdotes in their baby books, first steps, funny mispronunciations, their first day of preschool. I wish now that I had written about them every day. Instead, what I have are small snippets of our lives when they were tiny. A few sentences here, a paragraph there. Moments frozen on paper. Back then, time moved slowly, the days stretching long and full. I didn’t realize how quickly those years would slip past.

I began journaling in earnest the day my youngest child was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness as an infant. On the way out the door to the hospital, knowing we might be there for a long stay, I grabbed one of my nine-year-old son’s black marble composition books from the kitchen table. It was the closest thing within reach and it had some of his stories for school in his handwriting. 
I didn’t think of it as the beginning of a practice. I simply needed somewhere to put my thoughts, my fear, and the strange stillness that comes when life suddenly changes.

Since that day, black marble composition books have been my favorite journaling tool. There is something comforting about their simplicity, the thin pages, the familiar cover, the sense that anything written inside is private and safe. Over the years I have filled many of them. They hold the ordinary details of life, the worries that kept me awake at night, the small victories that felt enormous at the time.

As the years passed, I also found myself drawn to alternative healing practices. One that especially resonated with me was craniosacral therapy. My therapist was empathetic and deeply intuitive. During sessions, while gently adjusting my head and neck, she would sometimes describe what she sensed about my energy or aura. I listened with curiosity and an open mind.

One day she told me something that stayed with me long after the session ended; that I would become a published writer in my sixties. She cited many authors who began their writing careers after sixty.

At the time, I smiled politely. It felt like a kind thing to say, but also a little unbelievable. Writing had always been something I did quietly for myself, in notebooks, in margins, in the small spaces between raising children and living a busy life.

Before my fortieth birthday, I read the book The Artist’s Way. One of the central practices in the book is something called “morning pages”writing three pages by hand every day. The idea seemed simple enough, but also a little strange. Three full pages, every day, no matter what.

Many mornings I would sit down with my black marble composition book and begin with the same sentence: “I don’t have anything to say.” It felt honest at the time. Life was busy. My mind felt cluttered with errands, responsibilities, and the constant motion of raising children.

But something interesting happened once the pen touched the page. After that first reluctant sentence, another thought would appear. Then another. Slowly the words would begin to gather and before long the page would fill itself.

Those morning pages became more than a writing exercise. They gave my thoughts somewhere to land. They created a quiet space in the middle of ordinary life, a place where worries, memories, questions, and hopes could settle into words.

Looking back now, I realize those pages were gently guiding me somewhere. I thought I was simply clearing my mind each morning, but in truth I was learning how to listen to it. The practice opened a new direction for my thinking and, in many ways, shaped the path my life would take.

Those black marble composition books were more than journals. They were witnesses. They held the story of a woman learning to live with uncertainty, the small miracles of ordinary days, and the quiet resilience that grows when you keep going, one page at a time.

I didn’t realize it then, but every entry was practice. Every page was teaching me how to pay attention. How to remember. How to tell the truth about a life as it unfolds.

Now, years later, I can see what my therapist somehow sensed before I could. The woman who loves to write was already there.