My birthday came and went a couple of weeks ago. I was showered with many wonderful gifts from various people: several varieties of chocolate and lollies, one litre of Captain Morgan, a board game (Quantum, for those who wish to know) and several books. I even got vouchers for a surfing lesson for two. All very nice things and well thought out, as they all appealed to my tastes.
They all reminded me of a gift I received on my birthday last year. It was from my girlfriend: a plain black Moleskine notebook with blank pages. I’d told her about my desire to write and very sweet of her, she surprised me with it.
I remember inscribing my name, email address and telephone number on the page that provides a convenient place for them in the ink of a black uniball pen. I started carrying this notebook everywhere, and for the last year it has lived in my backpack, never far from my reach.
Beyond this initial marking of my possession, however, I did not write a single word. It rode around in my backpack, a sentimental paperweight, just waiting for a thought to leak on to one of the clean white pages through my pen. I suppose I did not want to despoil such a well thought out gift.
A couple of months ago I gave myself permission to write in it. I tried to write with care, not wanting to mar the pristine look and feel of the notebook. The pen I used and its liquid ink had other ideas. It turned what should have been neat writing in to an almost illegible mess. You would need to hold my hand as I walked you through it to understand most of it, with my small cursive and tight kerning.
I persisted, still using the same pen, and then the first few words turned in to sentences, those sentences turned in to paragraphs, and those paragraphs became the short story that opened this blog.
I adore this gift, even after it spent almost a year untouched in my backpack.
It still lives there today.