Blank Pages Sprinkles of Myself

As soon as I saw the latest Hive Collectors theme, I just couldn't help myself. I've loved notebooks and scribbles as long as I've known myself, have collected them, received them, carried them with me through the world, and now, thanks to the lovely @mipiano, I finally have a reason to tell their story.

Now, I didn't always use to be this organized with my notebooks. In fact, if you look through the earliest ones, you'll find a mishmash of information just randomly written down. Take, for instance, this one:

In it, you'll find random short story ideas and paragraphs I thought would sound nice, gift ideas, travel itineraries, answerless questions, movie recommendations, and skincare products to try. You'll find on the first page my original passwords from here :) But most importantly, by far, you'll find this:

my very first London itinerary. Now, funnily enough, I'll be flying to London tomorrow morning on a very impromptu, last-minute getaway. I'm long past making lists of monuments and abbeys to see. Bookstores, though, I still struggle to see how I may fit all inside one measly day before we move on to our Highlands destination. Yet what a treasured find. The galleries and places I dreamed of as a fifteen year old, now become long-loved friends. Also of Londoner origin is this little beauty:

Shakespeare's Globe, which can be found on that initial tentative list, is by and large a tourist attraction. For a lover of the theater, it was perhaps the attraction when I was a child, but continues to also be a well-loved stop on the way nowadays. Not always, but often, as I still collect pens and notepads (since they're in endless use around here), and since I love Shakespeare still (and perhaps always).

Another old, old member of the gang is the gold pink notebook that reads "love life to the fullest and embrace it with no regrets". It's, I think, older than the previous notebook and always had a very specific purpose, in my head - marking down poetry. Not my own, though occasionally that, too, but the poems I loved. As a teenager, I used to stay up for hours listening to recordings of poetry readings and transcribing them. As you can see, the poetry gave way eventually to movie quotes and monologues from my favorite plays:

Once or twice, it was even used as a diary, but primarily, it has remained a poetry journal, yet unfinished (but then again, so is life - there's room yet to fall in love with numerous other writers).

Ah, my gorjuss journal whose elegant, dainty design always baffled me a little as a young girl, but which I loved because of the secret treasure compartment contained at the back. I kept here, down the years, records of love and memorable moments. I have a little paper heart inside from the very first date I went on, a dollar-bill found on a floor of a Turkish hotel as a child, as of yet unaware of the world. A letter my cousin sent me as a fresh 18-year-old, traveling abroad for the very first time. A whole, robust life.

My Screamer notebook, marked as you can see:

Which accompanied me when I traveled to Paris as a twenty-year-old, wishing to busk around bookstores and live the life of Hemingway. Turned out the great man had been dead quite a while by the time I finally got there, so my French adventure was actually quite short. But I did have this journal with me, and sat on the banks of the Seine, scribbling a nauseating love story I was writing at the time. Kids.

Speaking of traveling journals, these ones saw Europe with me. The blue one, as you can see, heavily tried and tested, as I used it for writing short stories while basking in the sun on the Croatian coast for a month. The other one, much sleeker and unaffected, as it was bought near the end of my stay and before I moved on to Prague - not the best place for sunbathing. Remains unfinished, as I soon after started writing my first book, and so moved away from pen and paper in favor of my trusty keyboard for a while.

This one. Stay wild. Not so much a traveling journal as it is a travel journal. Gifted to me by my dear therapist at the end of my sessions with her, with the specific purpose of serving as a travel journal. Dates, itineraries, hotel bookings, all to be kept track of in this one. Which, I admit, I don't always do, but whose gesture inspired me greatly, especially coming as it did from a fellow traveler.

Then at last, my diary diary. Found along a Portuguese path, and fallen in love with at once because of the fantastic leather design, this one I reserve for journaling after a practice and intense soul searching.

I don't find it easy to keep a diary, I admit. Perhaps on account of writing so damn much in general. But that also makes for an interesting browse, whenever I open this one, as it already captures disparate entries across the years without losing itself into the minutiae. What a treasure it is, to be able to look and see the world as it unraveled.

And that's about it. Of course there are other notebooks scattered around the house, but these are the ones that most stand out to me. If you felt inspired to share about your own notebooky journey, feel free to join in. :)