Love for Analogue Stories » Trina O'Gorman

This week, I had to go to the Mall at Short Hills, a lovely, upscale shopping mall about 25 minutes from our home, to take my iPhone in to have...

The rat race and the fast-paced hustle and bustle of our typical, normal, everyday life were often exhausting. At the end of many days, I’d fall face first into bed...

The first time I publicly shared my story was an inadvertent sharing. I’d started an Instagram account with my students to discuss and explore the impact of social media. As...

I can usually find the silver lining in any and every experience, and one day, it is my hope, that we will be beyond this, this being all that we...

In late August, we always take a trip into New York City. There’s nothing unusual about us going into Manhattan. Prior to the pandemic, we'd trek into the city about...

The Simple and the Mundane  The past four months have been hard, and not just for me, for friends, family, our community, the entire state, the country, every country. The...

I could say that these are troubling times. We are in our fourth month of dealing with a global pandemic that does not seem to be easing. As a result...

I’d planned on arriving in California next Friday, June 5th, to celebrate Baum-kuchen’s 10th anniversary. My sons and I had talked about it for months. Even though I’ve “known” Wakako...

Happy May. It’s hard to believe it’s here already, isn’t it? The trees are blooming. I saw bees when I was out for my walk yesterday. And the birdsong has...

The Internet makes this vast and expansive world seem so much smaller, allowing us to make connections across the miles that we may not have been able to make quite...

We write to remember. We write to celebrate. We write to plan. We write to dream. We write to know ourselves better. We write to know others better. We write...

Our holidays were lovely, beautiful and full of love. And then for the New Year, January, we were thrust into a hectic and demanding schedule, heavier than usual, which has...

For me, the past decade was full of twists and turns. Many were amazing and beautiful. Some were unexpected, difficult, and tragic. It sounds like a description of our national...

What kinds of gifts are on your holiday shopping lists this year? Did you brave the crowds and venture out for Black Friday? I remember when Black Friday was the...

I don’t know whose idea it was to venture out onto the cliffs of Howth the day after Sean died. It certainly wasn’t mine; heights terrify me. But there we...

I cannot vividly remember the house on North Maple Avenue in East Orange, NJ. We moved from there when I was nine years old, to Summit Avenue in Maplewood, NJ,...

People have often asked me how I decide what to write, day after day. I’ve been journaling since I was a little girl of around nine years old. Some years,...

When my psychologist referred to my life experiences as traumas and my responses to those traumas as a complex post-traumatic stress disorder, maybe I should have felt relieved that it...

My life is absolutely amazing, but I cannot sugarcoat it. My life has been challenging. In fact, last summer tested everything that I knew about dealing with stress and coping...

I try to keep “stuff” to a minimal in our home, though I am, admittedly, a work in progress. I recently opened a few of our drawers and closets, to...

Constructing an Empowering Narrative: Moving Beyond Complaining and Blaming One of the most common regrets that people have at the end of life and at the end of relationships is...

In a recent Instagram post in which I asked my followers if they had any questions about personal writing, one person posed an interesting and provocative question, How do you...

I’m not sure what my life would be like if I did not keep a notebook and write almost daily. Personal writing is my superpower. It is how I process...

I was too tall. My skin was too dark. Even people of color, like myself, told me so. My nose was too big, and my lips were not quite full...

About a week ago, my beloved notebook accidentally found its way into the washing machine. Well, it didn’t find its way there. I accidentally tossed it in with the laundry,...

To say that 2018 has not, thus far, gone as I’d planned would be an understatement. I could not have imagined the course my life would take as a mother...

It has been a month since I last sat down to reflect on my analogue life and life in general for Baum-kuchen. In that time, I have worked daily on...

Oh my goodness. I woke up this morning and felt a crispness in the air that reminded me that it is almost autumn once again. The season of back-to-school and...

I am still in the throes of grieving, a place or space that is sometimes bad, but certainly not all bad. There have been, as I wrote last month, many...

I have learned, in the hours, days, and weeks after the death of my ex-husband and father of my two sons, that grief is a strange, strange thing, and not...

My mother taught me to be careful so I wouldn’t get hurt. She taught me to always call to let her know I’d reached my destination safely because anything could...

Expressive writing, writing about our feelings, can be very beneficial to our well-being. Studies have confirmed this and there is a plethora of anecdotal evidence out there to support its...

As a college writing professor, I have seen many young writers struggling to find their own voice. Voice, in academic writing, depends on the audience, authority, and the mood one...

If you’ve read any of my work or visited my website or Instagram feed, then it is likely that you associate me with journaling, personal writing, and Traveler’s Company traveler’s...

As I sat down to organize my notebook for 2018, and in the process say goodbye to 2017 and hello to 2018, I began to review the year I’ve just...

Fourteen years ago, I purchased this kit called a Circle Journey Correspondence Kit from a bookstore. It contained a blank book, ten envelopes, stickers, photo corners, and a few other...

In 2014, my sons and I started a Traveling Traveler’s Notebook with simple grid-ruled traveler’s notebook refill. We decided we would send our notebook to various “hosts” in different places...

The very moment I open my eyes each morning, my thoughts start to flood into consciousness, each one competing for my awareness and my attention, like needy children. As soon...

Many people feel that the cooler weather and shorter days are something we must suffer through, or at the very least tolerate and endure, while we await the warmth of...

I spent most of my childhood in the suburbs of Maplewood, New Jersey, where on school days, some kids still walked home for lunch to nicely painted colonial homes with...

Honestly, I don’t know how they do it. And by “they” I mean people who don’t keep notebooks. People who don’t write down their thoughts at all. How do they...

About two weeks ago, maybe even longer, I pulled about five storage bins out of the crawl space and into my bedroom. I opened them to look for the size...

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.’  Albert Camus I’d be surprised to discover that the feeling is not universal or...

It breathes. Well, it doesn’t literally breathe, as we do, taking air into our lungs, inhaling and exhaling. But it breathes, in that it is alive, pulsating with the beat...

Much of what I’ve learned from life, I’ve learned from stumbling around in it -- mostly making mistakes, but sometimes getting things right. The rest of what I’ve learned, I’ve...

I have circled back to this piece, which is about the power of expressive writing, with new thoughts swirling around in my head. Friday, January 27, 2017 was International Holocaust Remembrance Day,...

  Joan Didion, who would now be in her 80s, is a good friend of mine. Of course, she doesn’t know this. In fact, I’ve never even met her, but...

-- It takes us 39 minutes to get from our Montclair, New Jersey train station to Penn Station in New York City. We are, literally, at the doorstep of one...

“We’re all stories in the end. Make it a good one, eh? Doctor Who  (Thanks to Laura on Instagram for sharing this insight with me.)I’ve long since come to the...

If you’ve followed my notebooks for any length of time on Instagram, my website, or Baum-kuchen’s love letter, you have undoubtedly seen my beloved index cards. In the era of...