“I sometimes delude myself about why I keep a notebook, imagine that some thrifty virtue derives from preserving everything observed. See enough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going through the motions of doing what I am supposed to do, which is write–on that bankrupt morning I will simply open my notebook and there it will all be, a forgotten account with accumulated interest, paid passage back to the world out there…” – Joan Didion

There are days, months, years when I wonder why I write anything at all. Why I bother with a whimsical thought one day or a crumb of insight on another. Who cares if it’s raining, or what a child is asking next? Why does any of it matter?

This quote by Joan Didion is the why.

Writing in a notebook or on a blog is a collection of expression on the days when I’m stirred to notice. I don’t write about anything particularly deep or literary, but what I’ve come to learn is that when I put myself down on paper or at a keyboard, I’m making time to feel and keeping that safe for the days when, as Joan says, “the world seems drained of wonder.”

I’m writing to capture those moments when the light is just right, and to leave directions for how I made it out of the dark. All of it is uniquely my mind. And when I stray from the practice, when I shut down and leave no breadcrumbs, it becomes easy to get lost in the eyes of others and how they’re living out their days, months, and years.

I write to remember me. As magical as a fingerprint or as simple as a lip balm, I’m showing myself the bits that mattered. That has to be nurtured—lest I forget myself and turn into someone else’s story.

My thoughts from the laundry room. Stomach Sleeper.

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