Dropping the artificial everything, getting back to the root
Moving our worldly possessions 18 miles meant filling and unloading a U-Haul truck four times over days that boasted temps in the 90s F (32.2 C)—it was an extreme sport.
Beyond the financial, physical and mental taxation of a move, the process has been like holding an unforgiving mirror up to my own state of mind and patterns of behavior.
For my husband, who is more sentimental than me, there were realizations about what he was ready to let go of and what habits he wanted to break.
For me, the pangs came as I flipped through dozens of unfinished notebooks. Some were journals. Some contained story ideas or half-finished novels that will never see completion, at least not by me. Seeing the sheer number of them reminded me of the dynamic nature of this human experience—the various states of mind and ideas—but more, it reminded me of the value of this practice.
I remember reading a cynical but cool and well-crafted essay, “On Keeping a Notebook” by Joan Didion, and have a slightly different take.
“Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember? How much of it actually happened? Did any of it? Why do I keep a notebook at all? It is easy to deceive oneself on all those scores. The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself.” —Joan Didion
For me, and for many in 2026 I’d venture, to keep a notebook offline is something more entirely. There is something about drafting longhand in our digital and sterilized world. It is a record of impressions and ideas that are true.
When I’ve been in times of transition, handwriting offered a palatable balance of clarity and understanding.
Yes, I was particularly exhausted and emotional during the move. Not just due to the sheer amount of work and details to keep track of but also because my life wasn’t stopping and I had no time to process.
