Fellow notebook user and obsessive note taker here. I laughed at the part where you wrote a poem at age nine about a man falling from the twin towers reflecting on his life, because I had a similar “seriousness and heaviness and preoccupation with mortality” as a child. At age four, I remember being told about my neighbors divorce and telling my mom “it’s like they were holding hands in a dark forest and let go before they got to the sunny meadow.” I wish I could go back and pick little me’s mind sometimes for the pure ideas I know must have flowed through it.
Good God. As a fellow journal keeper and chronic pensive person, this finds company in my soul. These are thoughts I myself have had a difficult time expressing. Kudos to you for finding them within yourself. May we become satisfied in the ways we labor and document - cheers, friend!
Tommy, I see you as a mapmaker. You are dutifully and meticulously drawing the edges of the continents you have visited, the places where your feet have trod, and the scenes you have witnessed. The globe you are building is three-dimensional, molded into hills, shelters, and sunsets. Your notes allow you to visit the spots you have witnessed. Exquisite.
This was beautifully written. I was watching YouTube and I casually reached for my phone to check my emails and found the notification for this article. I am so glad that I decided to trade YouTube over your article. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and providing a glimpse of your life through your note taking process. This reminded me of my naive but happy writing era from my childhood when I use to write about superheroes.
Mine was “No Man Is An Island”— picked it up at a used book sale, no cover & thought it was about the poem/John Donne. It was a bleak time in life, and that book was a friend in the darkness. He’s been a friend ever since.
This reached my soul like an arrow. Kinda painful even, but still I thank you for expressing something I had been thinking myself but could not put in words.. that sense of having change so much that my past self's feel like a whole different person, like if I'm not living my own life, and even the question of "why I write?", and I have only come to an answer close to what you wrote: because it is so unbearable, that I need to honor it, the capacity, the tendons of my hands, and the support of the universe to be able to do it.
I love my notebooks! I have a bunch of them in the living room now. I did find that I have been using smaller notebboks and it was like my writing was drying up. I'm retired now and don't have the turmoils of work to write about. I bought bigger notebooks, Paperblanks, because I decided I needed more beauty in my life. I wish I had those camping stories to tell!
I have always wondered why I, too, have an insatiable urge to write everything down. I remember as a child in the 60’s how excited I was to get a new notebook, the kind with pastel colored pages, and new pencils and crayons. This article gave me some clarity and some freedom to accept that it all does not have to be organized. This urge that lives within always wants to come out on paper. It never goes away. Thank you, as usual you reached something within my heart!
reading your essay is like sinking into a warm epsom salt bath after a long day of hard work. it also feels like you have been reading my very large stack of journals sitting in the corner of my room, the years written on the spine with sharpie. they are like mental mood boards for my imagination.
i love looking back over the years and find patterns in my life. i feel like a time traveler.
What an insanely beautifully captured piece of work. Every sentence and story had me there with you and I'm so glad you have this impulse - the world needs your words :)
So beautiful-I have bits, starts, scribbles tucked into notebooks or on scraps everywhere, so every word here hits home. Thanks for expressing it so well.
Lovely essay. Fellow notebooker here. Years ago I often drew pictures in my notebooks, breaking up the endless stream of words. Lately I've returned to that practice and it seems exactly how one should keep a notebook. And the melodies that come while driving, say, are written down in solfege when I stop at the gas station not for gas or coffee, but for the express purpose of remembering something important, like a melody that arrived on the wind and needs to be inserted into the Matrix so the world can be transformed.
Tommy, you’ve outdone yourself again. Breathtakingly beautiful. Your thoughts expressed through your prose are like syrup for the soul.
The world is a better place with your scraps of paper in it. More importantly, with you expressing yourself in it.
🙏
Thank you James :) Your encouragement always means a lot to me
Fellow notebook user and obsessive note taker here. I laughed at the part where you wrote a poem at age nine about a man falling from the twin towers reflecting on his life, because I had a similar “seriousness and heaviness and preoccupation with mortality” as a child. At age four, I remember being told about my neighbors divorce and telling my mom “it’s like they were holding hands in a dark forest and let go before they got to the sunny meadow.” I wish I could go back and pick little me’s mind sometimes for the pure ideas I know must have flowed through it.
Wow. “it’s like they were holding hands in a dark forest and let go before they got to the sunny meadow.”
Thank you for this. 🙏❤️
And of course this is why we write, so that we may look back on how we saw the world at that age.
The entire essay is someone who sits beside me while I watch the Moon. A reminder that I'm not alone.
I read it on the terrace while watching the moon! so I agree with this
That's beautiful
Good God. As a fellow journal keeper and chronic pensive person, this finds company in my soul. These are thoughts I myself have had a difficult time expressing. Kudos to you for finding them within yourself. May we become satisfied in the ways we labor and document - cheers, friend!
Thanks Noelle :)
Tommy, I see you as a mapmaker. You are dutifully and meticulously drawing the edges of the continents you have visited, the places where your feet have trod, and the scenes you have witnessed. The globe you are building is three-dimensional, molded into hills, shelters, and sunsets. Your notes allow you to visit the spots you have witnessed. Exquisite.
Not sure what I’d do without my notebooks. Loved this Tommy. And gave me a good reminder to pick up an old favorite Didion.
This was beautifully written. I was watching YouTube and I casually reached for my phone to check my emails and found the notification for this article. I am so glad that I decided to trade YouTube over your article. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and providing a glimpse of your life through your note taking process. This reminded me of my naive but happy writing era from my childhood when I use to write about superheroes.
The 4am passage is some of my favorite advice from Didion— we need to give ourselves grace. The shoutout for Thomas Merton, though, for the win.
Merton had a big influence on me. 'The Intimate Merton' especially was something I felt pretty seen and consoled by.
Mine was “No Man Is An Island”— picked it up at a used book sale, no cover & thought it was about the poem/John Donne. It was a bleak time in life, and that book was a friend in the darkness. He’s been a friend ever since.
This reached my soul like an arrow. Kinda painful even, but still I thank you for expressing something I had been thinking myself but could not put in words.. that sense of having change so much that my past self's feel like a whole different person, like if I'm not living my own life, and even the question of "why I write?", and I have only come to an answer close to what you wrote: because it is so unbearable, that I need to honor it, the capacity, the tendons of my hands, and the support of the universe to be able to do it.
I love my notebooks! I have a bunch of them in the living room now. I did find that I have been using smaller notebboks and it was like my writing was drying up. I'm retired now and don't have the turmoils of work to write about. I bought bigger notebooks, Paperblanks, because I decided I needed more beauty in my life. I wish I had those camping stories to tell!
I have always wondered why I, too, have an insatiable urge to write everything down. I remember as a child in the 60’s how excited I was to get a new notebook, the kind with pastel colored pages, and new pencils and crayons. This article gave me some clarity and some freedom to accept that it all does not have to be organized. This urge that lives within always wants to come out on paper. It never goes away. Thank you, as usual you reached something within my heart!
That's a beautiful reflection Susan. Thank you for reading & sharing (:
Audibly chuckled at the phrase "false and bad." I feel that.
reading your essay is like sinking into a warm epsom salt bath after a long day of hard work. it also feels like you have been reading my very large stack of journals sitting in the corner of my room, the years written on the spine with sharpie. they are like mental mood boards for my imagination.
i love looking back over the years and find patterns in my life. i feel like a time traveler.
Thank you for reading Jessie & the beautiful reflection here (: time traveler is exactly right
What an insanely beautifully captured piece of work. Every sentence and story had me there with you and I'm so glad you have this impulse - the world needs your words :)
Thank you Alice :)
So beautiful-I have bits, starts, scribbles tucked into notebooks or on scraps everywhere, so every word here hits home. Thanks for expressing it so well.
Lovely essay. Fellow notebooker here. Years ago I often drew pictures in my notebooks, breaking up the endless stream of words. Lately I've returned to that practice and it seems exactly how one should keep a notebook. And the melodies that come while driving, say, are written down in solfege when I stop at the gas station not for gas or coffee, but for the express purpose of remembering something important, like a melody that arrived on the wind and needs to be inserted into the Matrix so the world can be transformed.