Here, we meet again

Hello, Tiny Notebook

You may not remember this, but we knew each other in a past life. Your past life, not mine. I haven’t died yet. At least, I don’t think I have. But, in your previous incarnation, we lived in Oakland, California. I had just started Art School. I worked at an ice cream shop.

I had yet to learn to hate Art and Artists. I still somewhat had faith that people were generally nice, that an ice cream shop was a Utopian fortress impervious to negativity which, by virtue of its very nature, could only be filled with smiling, glad customers thrilled and eager to receive a treat.

I wrote all of my strange, drug-fueled “epiphanies” in you, my sleep-deprived delusions, and what I believed to be brilliant, esoteric contemplations of the highest order.

Then, one day, my car was broken into while I was at work.

You—along with a bag I had spent hours sewing patches into, emblazoned with buttons that proclaimed my personal and political proclivities—were stolen from me.

This was my first time living in a city. My first time being robbed. And the first time I learned the pain of losing, not material possessions, but intellectually and emotionally charged property.

I was young(er), 18. This was an early lesson in the fact that you cannot control your world, not externally and, often, not internally. I have always been very resistant to this particular life lesson; it cuts me the deepest, traversing many layers of the human experience—self, love, loss, to name a few.

I have since come a long way, and though I cannot recall the details of what I wrote on your pages then (a side effect of drug abuse, as well as time), I have never forgotten you.

And now, I find, I’ve found you again.

So, here’s to you—to new beginnings and second chances!

I hope this time around you’ll live a long and happy life, until your pages have come to an end and I lay you to rest on the shelf, with your brethren.

Born this day
15th August 2020

(You have no idea what a dumpster fire of a year you’ve stumbled into)