I love a brand new notebook. Especially if it’s got a sparkly or bright colored cover, or even a classy leather-bound one. Big, small, every size in between. I imagine writing deep, meaningful verses, truth-tinged prose, important things inside those beautiful covers.
Then when it’s time to reach for paper, nothing I am about to write seems worthy of such a noble vessel. I save the special notebook for some special writing—although what that is, I don’t know, and I certainly haven’t written it yet.
That desire for perfection leads me to use dozens of utilitarian notebooks: spiral, legal pads, freebie notepads from random businesses. I take notes on a few pages of no less than twenty of these common items at any given time. Rarely, if ever, do I completely fill one. Even more rarely do I throw one away.
This obsession — yes, I willingly admit it is to the obsession level — leads to a huge amount of clutter. There are notebooks stashed in every logical place in my house. And quite a few illogical places. Every drawer and flat surface eventually becomes a resting place for a notebook.
Today I was moving some books from the bookcase in my office when I uncovered a cardboard box roughly the size of a boot box. When I opened it, I had no memory of the contents or packing them, although I have no doubt it was me who did so. The box contained twenty-two (yes, I counted them) used notebooks. The used pages had been carefully removed, so the pages were all blank and waiting for their next job.
I guess I need to select a pen from my overflowing collection of writing utensils and get busy filling some of that beautiful blank paper.