Without A Net

I need to start carrying my notebook with me. 

Earlier this year, I finally gave in and bought a set of pocket-sized Moleskine notebooks, one of which I have already mostly filled with everything from meeting minutes to statistical formulas, with a liberal sprinkling of miscellaneous notes and doodles throughout.  Since taking this Creative Writing class, though, I have completely ceased to even think of slipping one in my back pocket before I head out the door. 

No big deal, except that it seems like my best thoughts for writing or blogging come to me when I am least prepared to capture them.  Given the fact that I always have my Palm Centro on hand wherever I go, that sounds like a poor excuse.  To my defense, though, even though I have Documents to Go installed on my phone, my fingers can’t match the pace of the fleeting thoughts.  Just yesterday, I was reading one of my Creative Writing textbooks while sitting in a booth overlooking the Connecticut River Valley (oddly enough, the chapter was entitled “Writing in Restaurants”), when inspiration suddenly floated in on butterfly’s wings, fluttering just tantalizingly out of reach, and me without a net.

Later that evening, when Josh and I were out for a drive, we encountered a family of deer standing within feet of the road.  Once again I lamented leaving my camera at home, as such opportunities are rare.  I suddenly remembered that Josh had his camera with him, but by then, the deer were on the move, leaping away into the darkness.

It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.  How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?  For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone.  That is where the writer scores over his fellows:  he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.  ~Vita Sackville-West

I dream of becoming a writer and photographer, but I have to wonder about how serious I am about it when I consistently neglect to bring along the tools of the trade.  My notebook should always be within each (along with a pen!), and my camera dangling from my neck.  I might look like a tourist, but adopting a tourist mentality is the best way to see the ‘old and familiar’ with fresh vision.