Where Do I Start….?

I carry notebooks with me all the time. All kinds of notebooks, including a stack of beautiful notebooks I bought when they were mis-marked. A hugely drastic mistake that was pointed out to the store clerk, who pointed out to me that they couldn’t override the mis-marked price on the store computers, and so I left the store with an armful of notebooks. I start everyday with the best intentions to write down “life” in my notebooks; journaling, memorializing life. I imagine myself at lunch writing down the sights, thoughts, sounds I had experienced that morning, like taking photographs at random times of random people and random places. Some pictures are in black and white, some are in color, and they are all placed strategically on the page to chronicle the beauty in the everyday. I want to be that person always carrying my beautiful, worn out notebook and a purse full of pens and pencils always observing and writing; writing and observing. But, at the end of the day, all the pages in all the notebooks are blank, and my beautiful, mis-marked notebooks are just as pristine as the day I cleared the shelf of all the notebooks when the store clerk told me they would, they had to, honor the mis-marked price.

They say we all have book in us, and my book is always playing in head…but it never makes it to the pages of my many notebooks.  I watch the people in my life; loved ones, strangers, and their interaction with me, others, themselves, and think, “Aw, that person should be part of my novel”.   But, the pages are still blank. And time goes by and another page of my book plays in my head; but the pages in my notebook remain blank.  

I have memories of my children. In my mind the pages are well worn, with annotations in the margins that have been added as all of our lives have progressed. The words have become more ingrained and embellishments may or may not have been added.  I repeat the stories to anyone that cares to listen with the same enthusiasm, cadence and timing as someone reciting a George Carlin comedy routine or the dialogue from Monty Python.  But, the pages of my notebooks remain pristine.  My childrens’ baby books living in some obscure corner of my mind.   

I have bought bags to carry my notebooks in, and have bought pens and pencils to carry in those bags along with the notebooks.  The pens have been left behind at stores or businesses.  The pencils scattered around the house once the tip has dulled and a sharpener can’t be found. The bags are worn out.  The notebooks remain spotless.

Who knows, maybe it’s better this way.  Maybe it’s best to allow the sharpness of the sorrows of the past be blunted by the erosion of time. Maybe it’s better to chronicle on the pages the cliched, gentle kiss of a butterfly rather than the harsh sting of a bee.  Maybe we need the opportunity to extract the humor, the happiness and the sweetness out of a pungent pile of reality.  Maybe, when we are ready, we can produce a moral out of a tragedy, a lesson out of peril, a tribute out of adversity.  The half-empty glass seems to fill as time goes by; maybe the result of the tears and the sweat of the truth. Maybe it’s better to keep the pages filed away into arbitrary cerebral folders with obscure labels, far from the stark whiteness of the physical notebook page.

Maybe, just maybe, it is better this way…or maybe not.