the return of paper

I am moving back to paper.

Since I bought my first computer 20 years ago, I have been sort of a nerd, junior grade. I was pretty sharp with DOS!

I’ve owned PDAs and a pile of computers, some state of the art, some antique. Each time my PDA bit the dust, information got lost. My old computers have died from time to time and each time something was lost. I have deleted files that I should have kept too.

My current MacBook is pretty well state of the art, this year, but long after it becomes quite ancient, I think I’ll be plodding along with her. 

Still I almost always wrote my journals on paper. For one thing, when I did go through a stage of doing journals on the computer, I think I almost forgot how to write. I took classes in calligraphy in art school, and it is so easy to forget. My writing is better now.

So back to paper, which I think I prefer anyway.

I’ve worked with every size and style of Day-Timer made, and have a box full of very nice binders. I invented my own pages and systems, but now that I am retired most of that is not important any more. Time management is not so important and since I have no clients at all, it is easy to remember.

Then I met Moleskine. Found them at a college book store. Daughter 1 had given me a gift certificate to the book store for a birthday, I lost it for a couple of years, then found it agin. The manager of the book store is an old friend and of course she would honor the certificate.

It is not a large college and not a large book store, but on the end of one aisle I found these little black books, the size that might be carried easily, and I was in love.

I have filled 3 of the pocket sized books in the last year and a half. They seem to hold around 20,000 words on those 192 pages. I am hardly ever without mine. I take it to church and make notes. I take it to meetings to help me remember. I make notes about my garden and my appointments, my doctor visits and a reminder of what questions to ask next time. It is a catch all of my activities.

It is not the easiest size to do long essays, but I have a larger book for that purpose, and it seems to work. No system is perfect, including this one, but it has become a part of my life.

I was in a church committee meeting a while back and someone asked me if I had my “little black book” with me. Of course I did, it’s grafted to my hip.

Now I have rediscovered hand made books, and a whole new art/craft thing has begun.

Thank you Arline.