I usually have my Moleskine notebook nearby. It’s where all my good ideas go. I write down things I want to read, things to look up later that I heard or read about, quotes that inspired me, nuggets of ideas, and places to pitch them.
And now, all my ideas are gone.
I’m not quite sure how this happened.
My office is in the basement, and after noticing a little rust on my magnetic bulletin board I got nervous and bought a dehumidifier, mainly to keep my photo books and photo equipment in decent shape, and moisture-free. A few days ago, after running the dehumidifier a few times, I went to empty the bucket of all the water it had collected. I noticed the pink water in it immediately, and my first thought was what on earth is in the air in the basement that turned the water pink? Is there some weird chemical in the air?
And then, at the bottom of the bucket, I saw it. My Moleskine notebook was face down and fully submerged.
No idea how it got there, or how long it’d been in there. But there’s also no doubt I somehow did this to myself.
After a few days of laying open on a towel on the kitchen counter, it’s dry now, and, well, it’s pretty useless. Waterlogged and crinkled, the ink has faded. The quotes and ideas washed away.
In some strange way though, it’s actually quite liberating. It’s literally wiped the slate clean and given me permission to start anew. I suppose if they were really great ideas I would’ve and should’ve acted on them by now. Soon, I’ll crack open a new Moleskine notebook and fill it with even bigger, better ideas. Because maybe it’s simply the act of having a place to put these notes that made them so valuable to me in the first place.
A beautiful still life to photograph too. I can see something emerge from those faded pages. But yes, it still sucks that it got sumbmerged in the water.
That sucks. But there is room for you on team Field Notes...