MY PERFECT NOTEBOOK by Penny Dolan

 Last night I finished a notebook. Today, the first of July, I will start a new one. The empty pages will be a kind of invitation, but how will this new book and I get along?

 

Notebooks meet a variety of needs. They work as a home for ideas and inspiration on the run, for the safe storage for facts and research notes, as canvas to fill with 'morning pages' thoughts, as a creative space for collecting words, memories and images,or simply as lodging for ephemeral everyday needs. 

Many books have lined or - worse - narrow lined pages, which, while being useful, must carry a feeling of restriction for anyone with big handwriting. Some newer designs have squares, like French notebooks, or dots or hearts as markers instead. Plain pages are, to me, a whole other writing experience.

Notebooks also come in different shapes and sizes.  I've used all sorts in my time: cheap school exercise books; hard covers rigid with efficiency; indulgent 'travellers' notebooks with back pockets for tickets & stubs; annoyingly tiny notebooks for tinier fingers; huge wire-bound books, sectioned for subjects;  a couple of those richly embossed notebooks with magnetic closures - and less than rich paper inside, imo - and many other models alongside and inbetween.   

None have brought me the joy of my current model of notebook. The first was a gift from my daughter. The paper was of a pleasing weight and feel, the pages a quiet white in tone and unlined. This was, to me and many, definitely a luxury notebook. What a great gift!

 

Reader, I have to tell you that original notebook lay on the shelf unused for more a year. Though I loved the feel of the unlined blank pages, the pale cover felt intimidating. The thing seemed destined for another kind of life altogether, a clean elegant kind of usage, not one destined for fingers haunted by ghostly inkstains or writing too often like a cat scratching with a stick. 

 

For a long time, I felt this perfect notebook did not fit me and would probably not fit my sort of words and thoughts either. All of these were Illogical feelings, I knew, and I had been given the thing, hadn't I? And I was way way more than grown-up.  

But the book stayed shut. And I felt sad.

                                                                                                                                  

Then, one day, I remembered that artist's 'trick' when facing a blank surface: sweeping across the emptiness with a dull wash to break the stare of the canvas. So I used that trick myself. 

 

I opened the cover, and drew a quick loose scribble across the first page: a wandering unplanned line that took away the fear of that scary page. Then, across that first double spread, I wrote a fast friendly greeting, welcoming myself there.  Those early scribbles also told me that any handwriting inside did not have to be perfect, neither in the making or in the thinking. The page was for me now, not for some other perfect dream. With each small action, my feelings lightened.  Yes, I broke the stare of that notebook.

 

Today's notebook will be the fourth of its kind, all bought during sale periods. Those familiar, kindly pages suit and encourage me, and there are plenty of pages to fill. I can't write in it everyday but I have stopped letting the gaps grieve or shame me. I pick it up when and where I can. 

 

I try to write legibly and well but I don't worry if, writing while squashed awkwardly on a  pillow,my penwork isn't as beautiful as it could be. I've even become care-less in my use of the pages, drawing a curving squiggle down from the end of an entry to the foot of the page, filling the gap, so I can start with a clear, fresh page in front of me next time. 

 

This new - but similar - notebook and I will get along fine. Although I can write with keyboards and create typed and spoken notes on various devices, I still find writing by hand a great pleasure, and my notebook a necessary luxury.

 

How is it with yours? 

 

 

Onwards! 

 

Penny Dolan