Ode to a Spiral Bound Notebook

As I have remarked before I write, edit and reedit these posts by hand before sending them on their cyberjourney. To do this I use three hole spiral bound notebooks, the type available in any drugstore or supermarket. After a time I come to the end of a notebook. The last few white pages, scored with blue lines, wait patiently to be filled with my rants, raves and chronicles of my travels to different locales and through the everyday, sometimes ordinary, sometimes confounding, mysteries of life.

These notes are written in a left handed scrawl, most probably indecipherable to anyone but me. Words, phrases, sometime entire sentences are scratched out. Arrows point to words, phrases, sometimes entire sentences I want to insert. Occasionally paragraphs are written on subsequent pages with a note reminding me to add them in at a particular point. Eventually it all comes together, I post it and send it on it's way, disposing of the handwritten manuscript.

As a notebook becomes past history I occasionally think back over what it has held during it's time in my life. Sometimes it has traveled with me. Packed in my suitcase it serves as a companion to me. It becomes a sounding board for my thoughts, as well as a place to chronicle my trips. At times it is almost a friend, albeit a transitory and inanimate one. Although, when it would be to cumbersome to carry with me  while exploring new places I leave it behind for the day, taking notes instead using the memo app on my phone, I always return to it's comfortable, familiar presence. It is a place for me to sort out thoughts and refine ideas. It is the vessel I use to capture my written voice.

As I crumple the sheets I realize I owe the pages a debt. They have served me well. Those that follow them, I trust, will serve me just as well as I bid farewell to an old confidant and welcome a spiral bound new one.