Monday brought a small dose of the rain we’ve been missing in the South Carolina upstate – and, in its wake, a rare cool summer afternoon. My partner B and I drove to Clemson after lunch, to work and enjoy the weather out on the porch at our favorite coffee shop. We got to catch up with a friend who’s still living in the area, work, read, and write as summer passed slowly in low gray clouds and intermittent sunshine.
One of the things I miss about living in a college town is how the local cafes are intended to let patrons spread out books, laptops, notebooks, highlighters, etc, and study for hours; designed with generous tables and many power outlets. I could make this setup with my bujo materials and not feel out of place, or like I was putting out the workers by taking up a table for so long.
It was serene and relaxing to unhurriedly enjoy the sensory pleasure of slowly filling my journal with spreads. The rhythm of stamping out headings, the firm pressure of stamps against the inkpad and then, after carefully lining it up, against the thick, creamy paper. The sound of gently turned pages in my hand. The satisfying whirr of correction tape. My pen sliding against the smooth grain of the paper.
It’s been a long time since I’ve dedicated much time or attention to writing in analog form, and I’ve never been very intentional about the materials I used. It’s amazing what a difference it makes. I always liked the aesthetic of writing in notebooks, but was disappointed in the actual experience. My hand always got tired, my handwriting would grow messy near the seams or bottoms of the pages, and there was so much pressure to choose the right words and constructions, since I couldn’t go back and make major edits.
I still don’t think I’d write long fiction by hand, but so far journaling has been wonderful. It’s a deeply resonant form of happiness to be able to be present and take genuine joy in something that always looked like it should be a pleasure, but never was in practice.
That’s been a longstanding theme in my life, truth be told. Even before social media made this a growing source of angst in a lot of people’s lives, I was always a fantasist who longed to have beautiful experiences like the ones I saw in film, or pictured from my books, but seldom could take much enjoyment in the reality, which always passed to quickly, was too uncomfortable, or unromantic, for me to truly luxuriate in. I can long for a beautiful past or future, but in the present I’m nearly constantly plagued by some small discontentment or another.
I have a hard time really feeling cozy. I rarely can get to a place where I’m content and just vibing with my surroundings. Especially at home.
Honestly, it’s really strange to see an idea that had always hovered in my mind as something I needed to do become popularized on TikTok and other platforms that cater to “aesthetic” sensibilities. A desire to romanticize your own life. That was always a need urging me somewhere in the background of my pursuit of writing, and especially in blogging. But it’s been a long, incomplete journey trying to get to a place where my writing is honest, and I can romanticize and believe in the importance of my reality as it is rather than trying to use overly ornate language to try to paint over the truth and present myself as some imagined ideal that I, simply, am not.
I need to romanticize who I truly am, not try to turn myself into some romanticized character by pretending long and hard enough.
There’s a line I wrote in a (as yet) unpublished haibun of mine that feels like something I need to tell myself over and over.
There’s a simple truth in your living, just as anyone’s.
“dropout” – Ash Evan Lippert
Sometimes the messiness of life, and my life in particular, feels unbearably oppressive. It can be so hard for me to be creative when things around me aren’t just right, like I can’t tune out the ugliness around me and create something gorgeous. Like I need to input beautiful experiences to output beautiful results. Obviously this isn’t true. (It’s real enneagram type 4 bullshit teebs).
I like bullet journaling so far because it helps me focus on the process, and the pleasurable satisfaction that can be found in sorting through chaotic mess and slowly forming it into some kind of order. Making a list. Checking off boxes. Small steps. Piece by piece. That’s what I need.
small seasons 