On Keeping a Notebook, Pt. III (2024) // Trina O'Gorman

To the Wonderful and Amazing BK Community,

Last month, I wrapped up my second year of The Notebook People Project, a project in which I collected and shared the unique stories of different notebook keepers, collected through simple questionnaires and wonderful, insightful conversations over the past two years. I am so grateful for having had the opportunity to gather and share those stories with you. Thank you for being such a welcoming and receptive audience. While it was not possible for me to respond to all of your comments and feedback, please know that I received, read, and appreciated each and every one of them. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

Going forward, while I will continue to work on The Notebook People Project and share stories with you, it will be less frequent, allowing me a chance to share other thoughts and ideas about journaling and notebook keeping with you.  

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And so, now, where do I begin? I’ve given this a lot of thought, which prompted me to go back and read many of the BK stories that I wrote before I started The Notebook People Project. Eventually, I found my way back to the beginning, which was dated May 24, 2016, a story entitled “On Keeping My Notebook,”which was a nod to Joan Didion’s essay “On Keeping a Notebook” in her essay collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem. In that personal essay, she reflects on her own notebook keeping journey and writes, 

― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Eight years ago, when that essay was written, that version of me was two years into experiencing the breakdown of my marriage, and I was still adjusting to the shock of finding myself raising my sons as a single parent. We were going through incredibly challenging times, but I don’t think one would know that from my essay in which I described my “current setup.” Going back to that essay, in my preparation for writing this one, led me down quite a rabbit hole. My descriptions were written in syrupy, flowery, dramatic language. It was nothing like how I speak now, and I was surprised by how unfamiliar I sounded to myself. 

Why were my descriptions of my notebook and writing tools so syrupy and flowery? I tried to remember what had brought me to the Midori Traveler’s Notebook that was, at the time, the centerpiece of the analogue tools I used. I also tried to recall why my notebook mattered to me as much as it did, when I must have had so much going on. To find this out, I made my way to “Midori Traveler’s Notebook resources,” a Facebook group that I was active in regularly during that time until my last post to the group in July 2017. I read through some of my many posts, and barely recognized myself in the words and photos that I shared. But, in retrospect, I think the distraction and focus on something that anchored me, something that made me feel centered and grounded, was the balm I needed, and the community aspect of it all, the other people in that group were connections outside of my otherwise solitary and exhausting “single” mom life that I so separately needed. And so maybe my language was flowery because that version of myself needed to imagine a more beautiful and less difficult life. 

Curious about what other versions of myself I might find, I continued to search my BK story archives and found a second version of the “On Keeping My Notebook” story, this one written in 2021. The 2021 version of myself was as different from the 2016 version as it is from the current version of me. By the time I wrote the updated story in 2021, my divorce had been finalized in 2017, my ex-husband and father of my children had died suddenly, we found ourselves living through a pandemic, and we watched the world experience conflict and turmoil after the death/murder of George Floyd. I journaled prolifically in my traveler’s notebook, which, for some reason, had started to seem too small. My entries had shifted from the internal focus of my feelings and experiences to a more external focus on politics and social justice. I had a lot to write, and my voice seemed bigger than what could be contained in the slender notebooks I was using. At to that the fact that the pandemic had rendered us housebound and the size and heft of the A5 notebooks, which I recall being relieved to no longer be carry because they made my bag so heavy, which made my shoulder hurt, did not seem like it would be problematic because we rarely left the house. Perhaps that explains how and why I found my way back to the A5 notebook and to the A5 The Superior Labor Zip Organizer, which was the centerpiece of my setup in 2021 in that story. My notebook and writing looked as different as it sounded. My language was no longer flowery and syrupy. 

And here we are in the autumn of 2024, and for the first time in a very long time, even reaching back to before I started using the traveler’s notebook in 2014, I no longer carry my personal writing/journaling/reflective writing with me wherever I go. In fact, my need to pour my heart and soul out onto the paper every single day has also shifted to occasionally. My energy has changed so much over the years, now that I have finally found my voice and settled into who I am. What I carry has shifted, as well as how I write. 

MY CURRENT SETUP

• A 5-YEAR Diary: I’m in my second year of keeping this daily chronicle of my life. It has been an interesting process. I just came to the time in which my father died last year, and every time I’d go to write a new entry for this year, I’d find myself reading about where we were last year. In many ways, it was sad, but in many ways, it was just life. Recently, I decided that I would keep a 5-year journal for each one of my sons, filled with notes, lessons, and quotes for them to take with them into their adult lives. I’ll be using two Hobonichi 2025 5-Year Techo journals for that project.
• AN A5 POSTALCO SNAP PAD: I use my SnapPad frequently and every day. When I am writing stories, or creating courses, or working on business ideas, I always write while I’m thinking/brainstorming/creating. Sometimes, my scribbles are chaotic and make no sense, but I write to think.
• A POSTALCO TOOLBOX: I love this case so much. It holds my pens, highlighter, ruler, scissors, paper clips, flags for annotating, and a washi tape. To be so sleek, minimalistic, and compact, it holds so much. It’s like the clown car of pen cases. 
• AN A5 COMPOSITION BOOK: The brand varies, depending on what I have on hand. This is the place where my reflective writing finds a home. Currently, it is not in a cover. It’s just the plain notebook, and it lives on my desk. Rarely do I take it out of the house, for any reason. 
• A 6-RING LOUIS VUITTON MM AGENDA: I try not to make excuses for acquiring it. It is a throwback to the Filofax that I carried absolutely EVERYWHERE from the late 1980s until the early 2000s, the better part of 20 years. Back in the day, it was a must-have for the young urban professional, and though I am no longer that, the size and versatility are helping me stay on top of my current projects, and the nostalgia makes me happy. It speaks to a part of me that I thought no longer existed, but she does, and I’m actually happy about that. 

I am not going to reflect on my writing and my voice as it currently is because I cannot look where I am and who I am objectively enough to gather any real insight. Hindsight is 20/20 they say, but when we are in the moment, well, I think we should be just that. In the moment. Present. And hope, with one eye toward the future.