As long as I can remember, I have
always carried a notebook. It may
be a small one buried in my hip
pocket but it's always there. It's
my badge, my identity. If it's not
in my hand or my pocket, then it's
in my backpack. If I didn't have
a notebook somewhere on my person,
I'd feel lost. I wouldn't know who
I was. Or maybe I would but it
would be a different person, someone
I probably didn't even know. If
I think about it and don't decide
to be cremated, I'll ask to have
a notebook in my coffin with me
when I die. You never know what
you might want to write down and
if you don't get it down at that
very moment, chances are it's lost.
It goes along with that part of
me that believes that we should
leave a record behind us, a concise
picture of what was happening in
your life while you lived it,
within and without but, most important
perhaps, within. My closet is full
of old notebooks. My house runs
over with them. I know I exist
because I have the record to prove
it. Sometime long ago, longer
than I can remember, I must have
decided that immortality was
somehow related to notebooks and
now, even though I no longer
believe this, I still carry one
everywhere, my talisman, my one
sure protection from oblivion.
As long as I have my notebook,
somewhere inside I'm convinced
that I'm deathless.