Monday, 15 April. 8:30 p.m.
Woke up this evening from a nap and found a brown packet right outside my door. Inside were seven bright-orange notebooks. Pocket-sized. Perfect for my lists, haikus, thought bubbles. I’ve always wanted to own one, but they’re so pricey even my wish list can’t afford them.
On the cover is DURABLE NOTEs superimposed on a map of Antarctica. A slip of onionskin-thin paper is inserted between the pages; on it is a little story about the notebook. These notebooks, it says, are very popular among adventurers. In the past centuries, explorers used the same type of paper to record latitudes and longitudes. Geologists logged in seismic activities of volcanoes. Mountaineers sketched their hiking routes. Anthropologists and sociologists filled the pages with field notes. And writers and artists carry them around to store their dreams, memories, and ideas.
The paper is tear-resistant and is supposed to withstand the harshest weather conditions. In the last war, soldiers kept journals to describe the horrors of war and loneliness: what it was like to live with the memory of bombing villages, killing strangers, innocent women, and armed children. Many used them to write letters to their loved ones, or document their last will and testament. When the bodies of soldiers were returned to their families, these notebooks were found in the pockets of their jackets and pants.
Weatherproof. Futura typeface. And ellipses instead of ruled lines—those series of dots that mean infinity, that look like constellations connecting one small thought or feeling or dream to another and then another ad infinitum. As I am attempting this very moment.