![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I have a thing about notebooks. Whenever I see them in the shops I have to have a look over them. I don't know why - maybe I'm expecting to find one mythical, magical notebook that'll fill with writing and drawings without me having to do any work at all. The thing is, notebooks aren't just the sum of their contents (or lack thereof) - notebooks are amazing combinations of potential, emotion, place, history, community.
These are my current notebooks (I have a drawerful upstairs):
From left to right: the overstuffed flowery notebook was a gift from my amazing and wonderful friend, Vicky.
She gave it to me along with a bunch of different coloured pens and told me to fill it with something fun. I've filled it with ideas for stories, dreams, knitting patterns, to do lists, a map of an imaginary town, details of phone calls to official people, poems and fragments of poems. It's stuffed with postcards, tags from Christmas presents, lists of gifts to make for family and friends for Christmas, bank account balances, a map of Gibraltar, leaflets for various things and places, and so on and so on. I've used it since the end of August 2011 and it's very nearly full. But not quite! Every time I look at it, it reminds me of Vicky and our friendship and it makes me feel still connected in a little way with my friends in York.
Next up is a new notebook from B&M - it's a Things To Do pad, so I don't fill up the last of that flowery notebook with reminders to cut the grass and hoover the stairs. It's now getting details of official calls and suchlike written down in it, too.
Then there's a set of 3 notebooks from Lidl in Antrim. I picked them up at the start of the year just because I couldn't resist. (Notebooks always come in handy!) The first is empty, the middle has labels from balls of yarn in it and notes of what I've made and when with said yarn. The last has story stuff in the front - background, plotting, characters, some scenes in full or in part - and in the back, some appointment details, my dad's and brother's chest sizes for when I get around to knitting them jumpers, a fragment of poetry, and a bit of call detail from calls I made on Tuesday, plus an idea for a mess of a book I want to pull together. The paper is thin, the pages have squares on them rather than lines or being blank, and the pages are perforated. It's great for popping in my handbag and jotting things in when needed. It's also great for jotting down things for other people.
The last notebook is one I picked up in February 2015. It has small sketches in, the final versions of a few poems, some scribbles from my nephew Dan, some drawings from my cousin Ryan, and in the back it has poetry fragments and business cards from Chicago. It's a good size to slip in my handbag and take places, but it's a good quality notebook, so I want to put finished poems in it amongst my amateur sketches. It reminds me of family, of visiting Chicago with my sisters to see our Aunt Pauline (in her 90s, still driving herself around and still tap dancing!) and cousin Ryan. It reminds me of the Art Institute and spending a few hours studying the woodcut prints. It reminds me of my cousin-in-law's wedding reception, of my uncle-in-law visiting from Australia. It reminds me of family, spread out around the world and right here in this house.
So there you go. Notebooks. A hope, a promise, a memento, a legacy. (My father-in-law has diaries going back nearly 70 years - his own stack of little notebooks.) They connect me with family and friends, with the inside of my own head, with the past, and they hold promises for the future. They also remind me that even though I cut the grass (yesterday), I still need to hoover the stairs.
These are my current notebooks (I have a drawerful upstairs):
From left to right: the overstuffed flowery notebook was a gift from my amazing and wonderful friend, Vicky.
She gave it to me along with a bunch of different coloured pens and told me to fill it with something fun. I've filled it with ideas for stories, dreams, knitting patterns, to do lists, a map of an imaginary town, details of phone calls to official people, poems and fragments of poems. It's stuffed with postcards, tags from Christmas presents, lists of gifts to make for family and friends for Christmas, bank account balances, a map of Gibraltar, leaflets for various things and places, and so on and so on. I've used it since the end of August 2011 and it's very nearly full. But not quite! Every time I look at it, it reminds me of Vicky and our friendship and it makes me feel still connected in a little way with my friends in York.
Next up is a new notebook from B&M - it's a Things To Do pad, so I don't fill up the last of that flowery notebook with reminders to cut the grass and hoover the stairs. It's now getting details of official calls and suchlike written down in it, too.
Then there's a set of 3 notebooks from Lidl in Antrim. I picked them up at the start of the year just because I couldn't resist. (Notebooks always come in handy!) The first is empty, the middle has labels from balls of yarn in it and notes of what I've made and when with said yarn. The last has story stuff in the front - background, plotting, characters, some scenes in full or in part - and in the back, some appointment details, my dad's and brother's chest sizes for when I get around to knitting them jumpers, a fragment of poetry, and a bit of call detail from calls I made on Tuesday, plus an idea for a mess of a book I want to pull together. The paper is thin, the pages have squares on them rather than lines or being blank, and the pages are perforated. It's great for popping in my handbag and jotting things in when needed. It's also great for jotting down things for other people.
The last notebook is one I picked up in February 2015. It has small sketches in, the final versions of a few poems, some scribbles from my nephew Dan, some drawings from my cousin Ryan, and in the back it has poetry fragments and business cards from Chicago. It's a good size to slip in my handbag and take places, but it's a good quality notebook, so I want to put finished poems in it amongst my amateur sketches. It reminds me of family, of visiting Chicago with my sisters to see our Aunt Pauline (in her 90s, still driving herself around and still tap dancing!) and cousin Ryan. It reminds me of the Art Institute and spending a few hours studying the woodcut prints. It reminds me of my cousin-in-law's wedding reception, of my uncle-in-law visiting from Australia. It reminds me of family, spread out around the world and right here in this house.
So there you go. Notebooks. A hope, a promise, a memento, a legacy. (My father-in-law has diaries going back nearly 70 years - his own stack of little notebooks.) They connect me with family and friends, with the inside of my own head, with the past, and they hold promises for the future. They also remind me that even though I cut the grass (yesterday), I still need to hoover the stairs.
