FLEUR DE LIVRES JOURNAL BOOKS
One-of-a-kind hard and soft cover journal books with hidden treasures throughout. Who says you can't write your thoughts and pour your heart in something beautiful? In fact, we argue you should! The perfect gift for anyone who loves to write, doodle, sketch, draw and place treasured keepsakes into something beautiful.
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When my nearly 90 year old father passed away a few years ago, I inherited his father's journal, a small (2" wide and 3" long), tattered leather bound journal book. This seemingly insignificant little book captivated me throughout the course of my life. I never knew my grandfather (he passed when my father was a toddler), but as a child, I was told stories about his silence, quiet nature, kindness, creativity, and talents for creating beautiful gardens. Throughout my childhood, I felt drawn to the words in my grandfather's journal. From time to time, I would ask my father if I could look at it. Dad would go to the special drawer in his armoire filled with dad-like things (cuff links, men's soap, a shoe horn, an old cigarette lighter, a gold pocket watch, and my grandfather's journal). He would hand me the book and caution me to be careful and gentle as I would peruse its pages. I would escape to my bedroom and be transported through my grandfather's words. I would study his meticulous and perfect penmanship and the occasional misspelling. The droplets of ink from an old ink well made me imagine him sitting and pouring himself into the pages of this treasured book. The knowledge that he touched each page, and held that leather bound book comforted me.
I tried to make sense of the snippets of documented encounters with no resolve. The small stories with no end were spellbinding. What happened? Why didn't he finish the story? In my mind's eye, I would imagine faces to the names he'd write about and I wondered how he would communicate with them. You see, my grandfather was deaf and mute, and was referred to as "deaf and dumb" by his hearing counterparts. I know this fact because he wrote about it. He referred to himself as such.
He even documented his first encounter with my grandmother at a bean supper in Portland, Maine. What were the odds two non-hearing singles would meet there? "I cannot yet marry the Miss Amanda, for I have not known her a fortnight," he wrote. Clearly she couldn't marry him quickly enough.
Throughout the course of my life I'd always felt as though I have known my grandfather and to a tiny extent, I think I have. All thanks to his little journal they found in his pocket the day he tragically died in 1935. And now this little journal is one of my most cherished possessions.
The beauty of this magical experience and inheriting this sacred journal sparked a need to create journal books for others. In fact, I was nothing less than obsessed and worked feverishly through the wee hours of the night. The thought of creating a vehicle where one could pour their thoughts and experiences, names, stories, fears, successes, struggles, joys, pain and loss has such strong meaning for me. The truth is that these journal books have the potential to be family heirlooms, bringing meaning, comfort and understanding to their loved ones and their decedents as one day, all of us will cease to exist in the earthly plane. I've been amazed by how inspired my customers have been to begin journaling. And for this very reason, the immense time it takes to create these journals have been time well spent.
So be you, the real you, in your journal book. Share the human condition, your human condition. Your documented experiences, thoughts and expressions may one day bring such comfort to those who knew you, and those who wished they had. Every essence of you: your thoughts, your words, your penmanship will be treasured and pondered. And in the moment you're writing and taking the time to "get things out," you'll feel better for having done so.
-Dominique Lise
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