pencil, paper, happy rachel
who doesn’t love getting things in the mail? i went for a run on saturday with the dog and came home to drop her off after a couple of miles before going back out. while i was out a mysterious little package arrived in the mail and in that package was a slim notebook labeled “Creating the future for libraries”, the back cover urges me to “use this to keep track of ideas to make your library a better place”. The inimitable aaron schmidt created and sent this notebook my way and you can have one too.
i’m not telling you this as a plug for the notebook (though, by all means, go grab a few, they’re nice) but because i was surprised by how inspired i felt when i first saw the notebook. it’s funny because i’m regularly thinking about how to make my library a better place, i have lists and notes and ideas floating around all the time. But there’s nothing like an empty notebook - all those pages look like nothing short of possibility - to inspire. Nothing like blank pages to make you feel like getting those thoughts out of your head and into the world. i’ve been trying a number of online tools to harness my thoughts lately. i have a lot of projects going on and keep feeling like…if only i could find just the right tool everything would fall into place. Holding this little notebook in my hand reminded me that to some extent i’ve been experiencing the Perfect Apostrophe effect - fixating on vaguely relevant externals as a way of avoiding the hard, risky, and rewarding process of actually creating something. aaron’s notebook reminded me that i have all the tools i need to create change, to make new things, to engage - pencil, paper, my brain, my hands. All those blank pages are part of it. And the very fact of the notebook’s existence is another. aaron designed these little notebooks and put them out in the world. getting mine in the mail seemed like a double gift: an unexpected bit of sweetness and a gentle nudge saying ‘you can do stuff, go do it’. i think we all need that nudge sometimes, i find i need it more and more as i get older. so, you know, go do stuff.
btw, i realized after i took that picture that that’s an L-Net pencil. am i a big ol’ library geek or what?
I love this too! I’m actually kind of worried that if I don’t have any ideas soon for CREATING the FUTURE of LIBRARIES that this will stay in my bag forgotten. But it’s in the bag, so it will go where I go.
i’ve got a few things scribbled in mine. i have a dream that i’ll carry it around in my pocket and, you know, really have this place where i keep all those thoughts. in reality it will probably end up like a lot of other notebooks i have purchased to keep track of: running, books i’ve read, my dreams, my craft projects, my garden, etc. That is, used for awhile and then forgotten. But that’s okay because the nudge, for me, is what it is all about. The push toward *something*. I don’t know, i always feel like you (caleb) and anne-marie are so hyper-productive and creative. for me c-f has been one of those nudges…being part of something with people who inspire me! perhaps including c-f in the same breath as all of my long-forgotten notebooks was an unfortunate choice but you get what i’m saying…
mine went right into my bag too, caleb and it goes where I go. I’ve been carrying around a little notebook for about six months now and keeping disorganized and as-they-occur-to-me thoughts in it and, I have been liking it. But this one is better!
aw shucks. i’m so happy you all like it.
you know what i like most about these notebooks? they’re small. i know the book i’m writing in won’t be around for the ages. there’s less pressure to make everything in it totally rad which allows for more brainstorming.
the smallness is a feature i really appreciate too because of the aforementioned crapload of notebooks laying around my house with the first 20 or so pages full of awesome stuff, the rest covered in grocery lists and boggle games…
[...] big thanks to Jenny Levine, Stephen Abram, Lauren Pressley and Rachel Bridgewater for their enthusiasm and [...]