August 9: "The Flying Notebook," Day Off, Pope

Took the day off from work.  That doesn't mean I didn't do any work.  I ran some errands, picked up some medications, and practiced music at three different churches for this weekend's worship services.  That was all in the morning.

In the afternoon, I took my kids blueberry picking.  Yeah, I know that it's a little late for blueberries, but one of my best friends owns property by Lake Superior that is literally crowded with blueberry bushes.  She let us show up with our picking buckets and even drew a map for us, indicating the best places for pick.

It was a cool day, a little rainy.  For two hours, my daughter, son, and I picked.  We came away with several pints of blueberries.  Plus, we had a great time together, laughing, telling jokes, enjoying just being together.  For dinner when we got home, my wife made blueberry pancakes from our bounty.

I may write a poem about today, but I didn't even take my notebook out of my bag today.  Maybe it misses me.

Billy Collins writes about the secret life of his notebook . . . 

The Flying Notebook

by: Billy Collins

With its spiraling metal body
and white pages for wings
my notebook flies over my bed while I sleep—
a bird full of quotations and tiny images
who loves the night’s dark rooms,
glad now to be free of my scrutiny and my pen point.
Tomorrow, it will go with me
into the streets where I may stop to look
at my reflection in a store window,
and later I may break a piece of bread
at a corner table in a restaurant
then scribble something down.
But tonight it flies around me in circles
sailing through a column of moonlight
then beating its paper wings even more,
once swooping so low
as to ripple the surface of a lake
in a dream in which I happen to be drowning.

I don't go anywhere without my notebook/journal.  It goes to work with me.  On vacation with me.  It's gone to see movies and plays and concerts with me.  A couple of times, it's slept with me at night.  (In my defense, I was working on a new poem and fell asleep.  I think I actually slept ON it.)  It's been on beaches and bridges, rooftops and mountaintops.

So, you see, I get where Collins is coming from.  A writer's notebook has a pretty exciting existence.  If I ever make it to Rome in my life, it might even meet the pope.

Saint Marty didn't take his notebook blueberry picking today, though.