The cover is embossed with gold foil, artwork of an ancient Persian garden with a pair of deer. I open the new journal. The spine crackles faintly, and the scent of crisp, virgin paper wafts up. The pen is a gift too, meant for journaling on paper like this. I smile as I begin to write, but there's a tender sadness too.

Journal by Peter Pauper Press, a wonderful family-owned business. Highly recommended!

At this beginning, there is an end to a garden journal I started on 6 January, 2019. We've been through a lot together, that faux red leather journal with its inconvenient clasp and I. It bulges from taped-in empty seed packets, pictures of the garden that I printed on my HP and glued onto the lined pages, and fliers from gardens and garden centers I've visited. That last entry on 25 October, 2024 felt triumphant and bittersweet. I have a lot of journals, each with its own purpose, and so I rarely finish them. This one was the first over a long dry stretch where I had to say goodbye.

I also got a burst of energy from it. I wanted to write more in my accomplishments journal (also a gift, the large, sky-blue version of the "I'm Kind of Awesome" journal by Knock Knock) , the writing journal (a small Princess Mononoke journal I found at Kinokuniya) , the house journal (a thick, leather hand-bound, hand-made paper book with a green stone inset in the cover), the creative flow journal (Nature's Whispers by Angela Hartfield, art by Josephine Wall), the mother of pearl star patterned research notes book. I'm looking forward to adding notes and pictures to my plain gray international travel journal, or the subtly bronze and rainbow colors of my domestic travel journal. 

Finishing a journal feels good. Finishing a journal didn't end a chapter in my life, though. It just ... trails off. It's a pause while I reflect. There's peace. There's stray thoughts about what to do with it, if anything. Let it be, or compile the same dates across the years to find things in common, and to see the changes across those years at high speed? 

While that journal rests, maybe for a long, long time, there's this new journal to tend to. My handwriting is awkward at first. My hand has to get used to the new pen, the subtle tooth of the new paper, the hard, high edge of so many empty, tightly-packed pages under my hand. I hadn't realized how comfortable writing at the end of my old journal had become, with the edges of the pages worn soft, their thin profile a slight pressure under my hand, or under my wrist when I scribble on the versa pages. I refer to the old journal frequently, reminding myself of which spring bulbs I'd planted in which planter, of where I placed the new hyacinths and crocuses alongside our gravel country driveway.

It's autumn. In a way, it's the perfect time to begin a new gardening journal. The only things I have left to harvest are the pumpkins and, assuming that they dry out before they rot, luffa sponges that are hanging like weird cucumbers from a mulberry tree that the vines climbed over the summer. Leaves are turning color and fall to blanket the ground with red, yellow, orange, brown, and purple. Time to fill up the bird feeders. Time to watch the rain through the picture window beside my desk. Time to dream of future gardens while I tidy and ready my vegetable beds for winter, while I wait for the pumpkin vines to dry off, while I wait ...

While the veil between the living and the dead thins, and surprise frosts sparkle on the edges of leaves in the early morning by the light of a sleepy, wan sun.

The first entry is complete. I place the new gardening journal next to the old one. Time for bed. Tomorrow is a new day.