The story of Katrine Stewart, one of three ex-patriate singers in the Marionettes Chorale last Christmas Concert, appeared in Newsday a few months ago. Today I speak of Katrine, the writer, who has sought to introduce the art of journal keeping to some of her friends in Trinidad, and now through the publication of "A Book Of Life - Spiritual Journaling in the Twenty-First Century", shares this most novel, interesting and entertaining method of chronicling and documenting, in word and image, the moments of our lives that matter.
"We meet about once a month, a group of a few good friends, decide on one question we want to write about and then we share and it becomes a way of sharing at a deeper level, rather than all the chit chat that we, especially as diplomats, have to deal with" says Katrine, author of two other books, "Keeper of the Springs" , co-authored with her mother, and a small book in German on mothering "when I had small children."
Married for twenty-five years to David, Charge D'Affaires at the American Embassy, Katrine was born to missionary parents, Walter and Ingrid Trobisch, in Cameroon, Africa; was schooled in Austria; and graduated from Wellesley College in the United States. She is the mother of three daughters and two sons, aged 15 to almost 23 years, and has lived in India, Romania, the Bahamas, Pakistan, Germany, Mexico and now in Trinidad and Tobago.
In her book which is already on sale at the bookshop "A Different View" in Woodbrook, Katrine, who has been involved in 'journaling' for the past ten years, attempts to introduce those who keep journals to the addition of imagery and colour to ordinary words as she has been doing in her recent journals.
There is one big distinction between the journal and a scrap book in that to every entry you make, should be added your very own personal note .
"The journal becomes a way of editing your life and sorting the meaningful from the not so meaningful" explains Katrine "an example I use is maybe the ten birthday cards you received on your birthday, one stands out because it moves you, that is the one to put in the journal with your own comment and the others can be thrown away instead of accumulating dust somewhere."
"No one will edit our lives for us, I have had several friends who lost their mothers and have watched them under pressure and emotional distress trying to sort through their loved one's belongings and paper jumble, and the baby did get thrown out with the bathwater. The precious could not be sifted from the mundane in short time. And since memory fades, we must do it for ourselves. Writing that way it becomes a gift for others at some stage in time."
Even more interesting is the fact that journal-writing is easier than the old Victorian diary which was written in long hand with full descriptions of where you went and what you did on a daily basis. "Even writing in my journal once a month for 12 months and I would have more than if I did not write at all" says Katrine. "All I do is to capture those precious moments. It becomes your friend and not a stressful thing as you write once a month, once a week, once every three months, so it is not time-consuming or boring. In journal writing you just focus on the present, past and future in terms of your dreams and goals."
But you must always add your own thoughts to any entry otherwise it becomes a scrap book" reiterates Katrine.
One does not have to write lengthy pages, a simple paragraph will do and it is not necessary to be overwhelmed about capturing every moment of your life. "A picture or collage with one sentence, is journaling, and it can be done on the computer as some people are more comfortable with a keyboard than writing" says the author. In bringing journaling into line with the new century, Katrine shows that we can use a wealth of materials now available, such as, different kinds of pens and colours: "The colour really captures the mood of the writer. Also journals are available in many, many, different formats. You do not even have to have a book, it can be a computer form, e- mail messages clipped and put into your journal, newpaper or magazine articles. What I find most helpful is to add the power of image to the written word."
In her new book, Katrine addresses many of the stumbling blocks of why people who really want to keep a journal get stuck. "You can never really tell anybody how to keep a journal so my book is a collection of thoughts, ideas and encouragement." And suggests for a start that you choose a theme for your journal that represents your current stage in life. Although she is quick to point out "not everything in your journal will be about that theme. For instance a work on 'letting go' - at a certain stage in life we have to let our children go, we have to let dreams go, so you think of your theme and find images that go with that. Letting go can be the leaves and the seasons; it could be a mother pushing the bird out of the nest."
Katrine believes that "every life is a book waiting to be written. I wanted in this new book to encourage others to find ways to write their book, to make even one sentence because if you do not put down that thought it will fly away like a butterfly. My book is a manual, it is just like a journal, a collection of fragments that eventually made a book."
"I have been drawn into working on journals with people I have met in our life in the foreign service who have a strong desire to somehow find a way to put their lives into words" explains this very soft-spoken woman who will host a workshop on journaling on Saturday March 24 from 2 p.m. at A Different View.