Book Journaling for Self-Care by Season—Spring

Spring is the most exciting season of the year.  I do not know anyone who says they do not like spring or they cannot wait for spring to be over.  After a dark, cold winter, people look forward to longer, warmer days.  Blue skies, light rain, and green gardens are the hallmark of spring. 
No matter how young or old, most of us experience a little bit of spring fever as the weather warms. The sunshine calls us to move outside and soak in the sweet smells floating on the warm breezes. 

Spring provides an excellent opportunity for journaling, reflecting, and reading a wider variety of books than we did in the colder months.  Book journaling creates a unique season for readers to move outdoors with a book in hand and delve into the changing season as leaves sprout and flowers bud all around us. 

Book journaling combines two therapeutic activities—reading and journaling into a pastime that writers, creatives, and entrepreneurs can benefit from personally and professionally.  Not only can we explore our own thoughts and reflections in a spring book journal but we can peruse the pages of good literature for guidance, advice, and recommendations on how we can move forward.  As the seasons shift, so life changes in slow turns.  By book journaling, we can encapsulate the microcosm of our own development against the subtle maturation occurring all around us.  For many people, a book journal provides a unique opportunity to reflect on two favorite activities—reading and journaling.  
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Attributes of Spring 
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As the complimentary season to fall, spring is a season of change, of movement towards the light and away from the cold dark days.  It is a time of forgetting time and finding fascinating surprises as the days get longer.  It is a time of peeling away layers of clothing and peeling away layers of cobwebs in our heads and stretching our muscles.  It is the season where we come out of the dense closeness of interior life and stretch our wings in preparation of extending them for flight. 

Letting go of winter is typically a joyous time, even for the diehard skiers who look forward to warmer spring skiing under blue skies.  Transitioning into spring can mean more exercise, longer walks, less time spent indoors, and more daylight to spend on everything from long conversations with friends to reading by sunlight.  

Spring is for Starting Anew 
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Spring is a great time for planning and planting.  This is the time we plant our gardens—both our literal gardens and our metaphorical ones.  This is when we set our goals and put plans on the calendar.  We spent the winter reflecting, thinking back, and considering what was behind us.  Now we look forward, we are energized, and we dig out the seeds to plant for the coming season. 

Those seeds may be actual flower and vegetable seeds or may be the figurative seeds that we need to plant to move our lives out of a stagnating winter and into a vibrant spring and bursting summer.  Our seeds may be writing projects we started, artwork that needs to begin, professional development to the stack of books we are excited to dig into. 

When working with a book journal, try to write about the book after each reading period.  This may be once a day or once a week, just depending on how the book is progressing for you and how your schedule unfolds.  The journaling can significantly enhance the reading and learning experience of what a reader gains from interacting with the book, because anytime that we stop to reflect, we allow for opportunity to process our reading and learning with greater depth. 

While reading this spring, write in your book journal.  As you move forward, consider the themes of spring like: starting over, planting, planning, new beginnings, new life, extended days, more light, warmer feelings, transitioning between ice and fire, stretching, expanding, growing, developing, and coming into one’s own.  
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Spring Book Choices 
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Take a look over the following list.  Perhaps one of these books will jump out as a good option for your next book to read and journal about this spring. 
 
This I Believe by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman
This collection of personal essays and narratives tells a hundred different stories.  If you are looking for a book that allows you to read in 2-3 page increments, helps you connect deeper with people, and connects you to people you may not rub elbows with, this may be the book for you. 

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
This lovely assemblage of stories set in the English countryside will lighten your heart and enhance your love of nature.  Herriot walks you through farm life including not a few baby animals’ birth stories.  This book is a fun favorite for everyone who reads it. 

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
The sweet, classic tale of a toad and a frog who travel and go on lovely adventures together.  This light hearted story will remind you of everything that is right with the world. 

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
I can find a way to squeeze in an Austen book into any season, this is true.  But I also think that Mansfield Park is a great fit for spring book journaling.  Franny Price, the intelligent protagonist from an overburdened family, starts life at age 10 when she moves to a wealthy aunt’s house.  There she educated, struggles, and eventually lands the life she chooses—with her love and her books. 

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Open to any page and turn sideways.  The lines of poetry look like leave of grass when held sideways in jagged, irregular heights and lengths.  Not only will Whitman rejuvenate your drive to get outside and enjoy the warm weather but it will warm your heart to the beauty of everyday life around you. 

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Truly, this memoir is the tale of rags to riches, racism to acceptance, and desperation to stardom.  Noah’s experiences of growing up with a black mother and white father in South Africa, where his very existence was illegal, is a fascinating tale that ends with Noah persevering towards success. 

A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
If you lack the funds to travel to France for a year, read this book instead.  The narrative takes readers through the warm kitchens of Provence to meet the unique, quirky characters who have called that land home for millennia.  No book would make a person love Provence more. 

1984 by George Orwell
If you have not heard, 1984 has made a comeback in a big way.  It is back on the bestseller’s list, and not because it has been banned but rather because it is relevant again.  Readers by the thousands are flipping through Orwell's 1949 tale of a dystopic future and eating up its pages. 

Chocolat by Joanne Harris
Yes, I do have an innate desire to connect spring with France.  Chocolat is the classic tale of spring time love.  Although the story takes place over more than a year, its themes of denial, searching, and loneliness turn to romance, acceptance, and openness.  Just as spring does for us every year. 

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
I admit that I have not read this book, but a fellow book lover recommended it to me.  She said that it totally changed her perspective and opened her eyes on a variety of social issues important to her.  I do feel like books that are powerful enough to alter a person’s world view deserve to be shared. 
 

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