My notebook (a short memoir)

My notebook.

It started out as a practical thing. I had always had a notebook in the field with me—whether that was the field of work when I ran a tourism development project in Nicaragua or the field of research…which was sometimes the same field. But journaling, that was another issue, a more difficult one, my entire life. I have never been able to journal, to really write down what I was feeling or doing or not feeling or doing. People always gave me journals, pretty blank notebooks with lines or without, and I would write something mundane on the first page, and then it would sit blank on my bookshelf. I think I have a box full of these blank books in the closet of the spare room in my mother’s house.

So before leaving for Brazil in late August of last year, I purchased my three-pack of large Moleskin notebooks (the big, thin, floppy ones—squared pages, not lined) as my research notebooks for my fieldwork. I had not written anything in quite a while, and was feeling the urge to, especially after I started my blog and began to get positive comments after my first couple of entries. I was also feeling…lonely and frustrated by my communication problems as I went through the process of culture shock and becoming fluent enough to express finer ideas and feelings. At the same time I was had fallen for a guy and became a bit emotional when he decided to return to the longterm girlfriend he had recently broken with. As a result of this, I also began listening to lots of melancholy music on my IPod and got even more into the type of mood that is conducive to reflecting on the meanings of life, love and, well, you know. The point is that all of these circumstances converged to put a pen in my hand at various moments during my three-month stay in Campinas, Brazil, to write lots of sad, frustrated love poetry in my supposed research journal.

And it all went downhill from there. My research journal became a book of poems, lists of songs to put into song lists dedicated to certain people, notes on interviews, notes on reflections on interviews, to-do lists, ideas for future research, phone numbers, pasted-in business cards and small paper memoirs. And lo and behold, my research journal became the journal of my life. All-in-one. I periodically flip through its pages and remember, which I think is the point of this exercise. I read (or try to read) its notes and entries, the combination of the written practical and personal, and I can piece together entire days, what I was thinking and doing, and sometimes it conjures up images of where I was, what the light was like, what the air smelled like. All because I called the thing a ‘research’ notebook, instead of a ‘journal’. Somehow it, combined with the other happenings in my life, created a space for, and gave validity to my musings. Now I have a notebook full of them. I must say, the notebook itself has transformed along the journey: it is now raggedy-edged, covered with various stickers and decals from Kansas, Brazil, and the UK, and is full of personality. As I reach the last five pages of this notebook, and look to the Moleskin I have already purchased to replace the old one, sitting on my desk and ready, I feel a bit of sadness. But excitement as well. Hopefully it will have as interesting a life as the first one.