I keep a notepad by the computer upstairs, as from time to time a reminder of some kind of work or chore I'm supposed to do leaks out of my head, and I need a place to anchor it. The notepad was previously a David and Goliath notepad with a cartoon drawing of a boy with Charlie Brown hair surrounded by the words 'Boys Are Smelly'. My smelly boy was used up in due time, its pages used and wrinkled and covered in doodles from a bored Melissa, and it was time for a replacement, as I couldn't continue to write things on my hand forever, as inevitably I would write it on my hand and then absentmindedly wash my hands, my germ phobia over-running my need to remember what the hell task it was I was going to do.

So while racing around Sainsbury's one day, I strode through the stationary section, my mind conscious of the fact that I had things to do, and I looked at the notepads. There were bright shiny pink ones, plastic covered ones, average brown ones. On the bottom shelf I noticed a distinct black rubber covered notepad, and it was revealed that the notebook cover had been made out of a recycled tire, its pages recycled paper. Next to it was a plain gray notebook, also made out of recycled paper and far less glamorous compared to its cat suited neighbor. Since I felt a little strange with the idea of a tire on my desk, visions of them not quite managing to get all of the roadkill out of the treads haunting my germ phobic dreams, I bought the recycled gray paper one.

And it sits upstairs next to the computer. It sat there for a few days before I had to start taking notes on it, inevitably last-minute to do lists, blog topics, people who I am supposed to call, errands I dread. But I kept thinking about it, mostly because it sat there on the desk emboldened in plain script across the front with the words: 'I used to be something else.'

I used to be something else.

As though, through the simple process of being pulped and watered, everything has the chance to become a new incarnation of something good, something useful. All it takes is a recycling man named Johnny Boy to chip the paper into the vat, erasing all the words off of you that someone once took the time to write, and poof! You have a whole new chance.

I looked at the front page of the paper and wondered what it used to be. Was it someone's grocery list? Was it a middle chapter in a term paper? Was it the constant scribbling and project planning of a long day at work? Was it a love letter of the old fashioned kind, the kind you get in the mail and can hold and sniff and treasure?

And how is it that all it takes to get the absolute definition of tabula rasa, the very epitome of the clean slate, is to go through the wringer? Is it possible that with a little vinegar and a soupy machine, we too could be scrubbed of our previous content and be allowed to emerge as something with the world ahead of them?

I spend far too much time thinking about that notebook.

But how great it is to think that you'd have a chance to become something new, all in the same lifetime.

I guess it's what I have done, pretty consistently, since that April morning in 1974 (every time I write that, I feel old. 1974. 1974. Seriously, that's old. And every time I think of the 1970's, for some reason I think of Snoopy, which makes no sense at all except for the fact that perhaps I am also thinking of Woodstock and everyone knows Woodstock is Snoopy's best little yellow buddy. However Woodstock took place in 1969, not 1974. Screw it. The word association is doing my head in.)

Since the beginning, I have been taking the time to explode into something else, pushed into another life perhaps due to some kind of life demon I managed to pick up in my life and the only way to shake it is to morph into something else, camouflaging myself among the living. Sometimes, a new life has occurred beyond my control, I hadn't wanted to move on maybe, but I had to and the best way to try to acclimate to the change is to pretend that space had always been reserved for me.

I am on Life #6. Who knows how many lives this notebook has had, maybe it's just the second and thus the onus is on me to make sure that what I contribute is meaningful. The first page doesn't want a grocery list, a hastily scribbled phone number that I don't want to call, or a blog idea. Maybe its dream is to be covered with the first re-draft of the Magna Carta or the reiteration on the EU's doctrine on the import of bananas, one that's clearer and makes more sense (my reiteration would be very simple and clear-as I hate bananas, I would ban their imports. I may be re-writing EU doctrines, but I can do it as a totalitarian, if I want. It's my doctrine, after all).

Maybe the notebook is not as career driven as that. Perhaps it's happy enough to sit there and take whatever mental detritus that comes out of my head gracefully and kindly (Awww'¦isn't that sweet, it will say. She actually thinks she can make a blog post out of a drinking fountain experience. Poor little chippie, bless her.) Maybe it doesn't care what it is I have to say, it's so happy to be around again.

Or else it's very tired and terribly annoyed. It thought when it went to that recycling vat it had made it's way to the great timber yard in the sky. It sits there, grumpy, angry, or bewildered (What the hell? What? Wasn't I just a leaflet on breast pumps a minute ago? What? Where am I, and why does this cat keep sitting on me?) It was tired and ready for a rest (my God, little notebook, I totally understand. I too am exhausted and ready for a nap. A long one. But keep the paper pulping to yourself, ok?)

Who needs animism when you can amuse yourself with paperism?

In the end, I can't help but be glad I bought recycled paper. And even though I fill the notebook with little notes and things I need to do and blog topics that may or may not ever see the light of an LCD flat screen, I am comforted by its little gray company. I will buy this kind of notebook again and again, and when it is full it will wind up in the recycling bin again, thereby either making me a savior (I'm recycled again! I'm back again! And this time, I don't have a reminder to call and get colonoscopy approval from an insurance company, yippee!) or making me its own incarnation of Judge Doom (God, I'm back again. I'm so tired. I hate that bloody fir tree I was a part of. I hate my life. I hate everything.)

But in the meantime, I take a small comfort in the front of the book.

I used to be something else.

I know the feeling.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 10:36 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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