Where to Begin?

Notes and the taking of.

Shedding light on a practice so mundane does have its benefits. For one thing, I’m writing more things down than ever before. The importance of my daily carry frees up the minutia in small morning moments and I exude focus instead of passively soaking in the cacophony of birds, people, inspiration. The day to day doldrums and in betweens, the beats and halts, jump starts and blind leaps of my life occur all the same as before, except with the opportunity to capture a moment or engrave the spoken words of otherwise forgotten others in the pages of a small notebook. Also grocery lists. A lot of grocery lists.

The spring begged near infinite questions of my first steps. The first of these will ring true over and over, not just here in this great city, but anywhere. Everywhere I’ll go till I can go no further - where to begin?

I’m going to use this notebook until the end of summer. By then, I might have an answer.

Calen

2000 & nineteen

The Field Notes Memo Book is a marvel. Durability and tactful design combine seamlessly between discrete paper covers. As reliable companions go, I’ve done worse.

Never have I had a journal. That is to say, I’ve never kept one single ledger for anything but scribbles or the chicken scratch daydreams I couldn’t stand to forget. For that reason and little more, I adopted the 48 page memo book.

These books are my day to day lifeline, without which the creative juice inside my brain would spill onto the nearest surface, forever lost to the four winds. More than this, the daily carry culture is one with which I found a home. Within a single edition of Field Notes lies a storied tradition spanning decades of lost Americana. Specifically, I see the promise of forgotten innocence and determined productivity that comes from these books. It’s my own rounded corner of the midwestern spirit, invigorating to fulfill. I really couldn’t say it better than Aaron Draplin does here:

As most fascinations do, it became a love. I found myself in December at the Field Notes HQ in Chicago, shaking hands with Aaron Draplin, the man himself at the holiday pop-up party. My love became an obsession.

Call it a resolution, but the new year is here and I’ve used the same green Field Museum Field Notes book from day 1.

48 days have come and gone since 2019 began. 48 pages have exhausted themselves and I pay my respects.

In the summer, my best friend and the girl I’ve been spending my Chicagoland adventure with had the privilege of an internship at the Field Museum. Together, we found a new kind of fascination with history and its place in the natural world.

There’s a Field Notes tradition of supplying the user with a handful of noteworthy suggestions. In this edition, they’ve provided a list of hidden treasures at the Field. It’s been some time since this green covered book has been in print, so I’m not sure which of these relics are still around. One day, I’ll find out.

I appreciate the care taken in every book to break down the specs.

I never mentioned it’s a signed copy.

“Calen! Stay Strong.” - Aaron Draplin