Notebooks

I have an addiction.

No, I’m not talking about  sugar, although I could go for a handful of sour patch kids right now.  I’m talking about notebooks. Yes, notebooks.

I admit that I get all itchy and excited when I walk into an office supply store. Just think of all those unopened pens, all those blank pages waiting to be filled. It’s pretty difficult for me to pass up a cute notebook, although I am picky about the pages. It’s not as easy as you’d think to find ruled notebooks that don’t have way to much space between the lines. Sometimes I fall in love with a notebook only to find that the inside looks like it’s been ruled for my third grade daughter.

But every so often the fates align and I’ll find a notebook that’s just right, not too hot, not too cold. Oh, wait, that’s Goldilocks isn’t it? Well sometimes finding a good notebook feels like a fairytale.

I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I’ve never been known to fill up a whole book. Usually before I’m halfway through it I’ve found a new notebook to dote over. Or sometimes a new project just begs to have its own book. The result of my fickleness is a plethora of half filled notebooks stacked beneath my bedside table.

Just recently I was searching through one of my notebooks looking for some notes on a middle grade book that I’d started to outline a couple of years ago. I’m finally getting back to this book and I wanted to remind myself of the notes I’d already written while I was doing my plotting.

I didn’t realize all the little treasures inside my notebook. I couldn’t even remember writing half of the things inside those pages.

Here’s one of my favorite things that I found:

Linda settles the towel on her lap and takes my feet in her hands. She breathes in. Out. And smiles, a calm, reassuring balm. Already I can feel the energy in her hands as she starts in on the big toe. Moving her big thumb along the top by the toenail I can imagine my big toe to be the head that it represents. I can almost feel the pressure firm on my scalp.

Each pressure point presses distinctly. “What’s that?” I ask when the mark is tender.

Linda answers, “Your  eyes, your ears, your stomach, big intestine, ovaries.” Her Danish accent making these everyday parts seems lovely and important.

And I try to relax, allow that energy to finger its way up inside. Healing.

“You hold your worries here,” she says, pushing a spot near the tender arch on my sole.

Yes. My stomach houses all my anxieties. At night it is tight, plagued by indigestion. Where else would I store all those worries if not at the very core?

“You don’t need to press too hard,” Linda says. She holds her thumb over the tender spot, hardly pushing at all. She just lets it rest there as if to acknowledge the problem, but not to try to chase it away.

She is gentle with me, probably gentle with herself too and I wonder if this is something that I could do. Could I find the sore spot and then just rest there? Or would I press too hard? Do I want to feel the pain?