Journal Covers


I keep a notebook, have for many years. Every once in a while I'll pull an old notebook down from the shelf and flip through it, an activity that is fraught with danger and steepness.

Kimberly has made many of these notebooks for me. One has a black cover with a golden thistle stencilled onto it. Another has a gold-and-black paisley pattern over the coverboards, which are tied together with string. Another is red with a flap to seal the book, and a leather string to tie it shut. Another is plain orange, but I had many friends draw some thing on it, so that it is covered with sea monsters, pears, hopped-up dogs, and mushrooms. Etcetera. Even the books she didn't make have character in their being, even before I fill them. One of my old notebooks is a 1940s accounting ledger. Another was a gift, with a leather cover.

You, caro lettore, become aware that these notebooks become dear to my eyes, even before I open them.

My lovely wife recently used several cloths she had lying around to make a patchwork flower, which she pasted onto the cover of her sketchbook. It looks pretty cool. I asked her if she'd put something on my big blue notebook, which should have been a sketchbook, but I stole it from her (actually, I bought two at a garage sale and gave her the bigger one: good husband).


She put a patchwork onion on my notebook. An onion. I love onions. I sometimes wish I were an onion.

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