Nota Bene

I'm a meticulous note-taker. Throw me into a meeting and I've got the "stuff" - note pad, a few varied coloured pens (partial to purple and green am I), a highlighter or two. What throws me off and brings out my inner kindergartner is when those who are not as organized ask for pages out of my notebook and borrow my pens or scratch words, with my highlighters on pages ripped from my notebook.

My note-taking all falls down in the execution of course. Because I have this ongoing fantasy that I can remember every icky bicky thing and what I'm supposed to do before the next meeting. What truly galls me are those who scribble one word notes to themselves with my gear and at the next meeting and with their to do list completed, will remind me what I had agreed to do for this one. What happened, did I forget? Of course not. Just deferred. Ahem.

You have no idea how often I'm caught unawares by this false assumption that my memory is remarkable. Well it is if you want me to recall the day I rode my first bike or the mornings I went rabbit hunting at the age of 4 with my grandfather. But last month?

There really is no further space for new files in the recesses of my brain.

I have to break down and haul out the notes and fumble over them and tick when completed.

I hope I remember to do that.

I Take Notes

I take notes on books I read. I wish I had done so even as a child. But. Notes trigger ideas in me, validate feelings often unexpressed or ephemeral. Answer the whys. Illuminate the squelched thoughts. Give me hope, yank me from despair.

For example:

I love this thought from P170 of The Burgess Boys, by Elizabeth Strout:

"And she learned - freshly, searchingly - of the privacy of sorrow. It was as though she had been escorted through a door into some large and private club that she had not even known existed. Women who miscarried."

Anyone who has miscarried (myself, my daughter, some friends)finds this reflection resonates. Deeply and profoundly.

It's a private club. Lifetime membership.

On Blue Tooth and Blue Notes

Daughter (who lives 3000k away) and I have long conversations on the phone, our record is 6 hours. Yet to be broken. It will, I've no doubt.

A few months ago I purchased a blue tooth headset for my landline. Mein Gott, what a liberator that's been. I am no longer chained to a handset or a computer. I make meals, wander about in the garden, have a coffee with her, even get some work done. Like today. I needed to make 10 CDs for the cast and crew of the play and I did this while chatting with her. I bought her a blue tooth for her birthday. She took a bit of convincing but now she is thrilled. Today we purged her closet while chatting, reminiscing about our race running days together (she still had the race t-shirts, I tossed mine a long time ago). We talked about the sweaters we had knit for each other and how sad it is when one no longer wears them and has to make a decision before Goodwilling. I suggested photographing these handknit beauties. I've done that. None of us want a museum of old clothes and shoes and christening robes and wedding dresses or could I be wrong?

She said this is why people move, so they can store their history. I said this is why I'm so awful with empty rooms, I am compelled to fill them. I feel we are almost physically together during these long conversations.

And Blue Notes.

I watched Daughter do this a few years ago and found it to be a satisfying side effect to my compulsive book reading.

(Quote recently seen about book readers such as myself: I read so much my bookmarks are smaller books. Yeah.)

Like her, I now make little notes of passages I like. And I don't limit myself to books.

For stressful days:

My eyeballs aren't playing as a team. Dooce Blog.

On describing a hangover:

His head was filled with exploding drums of used motor oil. P239 - Good to a Fault.

A description of a disconnected woman:

A strange dim woman, like a flashlight with the batteries run down. P 301 - Good to a Fault

.

On London:

Black taxis soughed through the skin of recently fallen rain. P263 - Mistaken.

On a fruitless conversation:

Monosyllables were planted like bollards closing every avenue. - The Transit of Venus.

On love:

The tragedy is not that love doesn't last. The tragedy is the love that lasts. - The Transit of Venus.

Such bon mots can't be found on teevee or in the movies. This is why I read. And savour such phrasing. Again and again.