Just the basics: a survival strategy
The world is awful. Local state politics are awful. There’s an ongoing major construction in my house, which has upended my routines, my spaces, my sleep. Everything feels hard.
On my desk: a small book pile; an A6 journal; Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age.
In response, I am focusing on what I consider the fundamentals. I do my best to take my daily steps and write my daily words. I cook familiar meals. I use my digital calendar, and I don’t make any grandiose plans.
In terms of my stationery, everything is pared down to the basics. I always keep six pens inked, but right now I’m mostly using my Visconti Homo Sapiens Bronze Age with the cursive smooth italic nib. It’s been consistently inked with something greyish - either Taccia Ainezu, or Taccia Budounezu (currently). It’s going to run out soon, and I’ve been wondering whether to try the Taccia Kuromurasaki with the giant skeleton on the box, but I might go right back to Ainezu. I’m constantly scribbling - notes, lesson plans, annotations on the margins of manuscripts, but there’s almost no variety in what I use for writing.
Scribbling in the Life Noble Note A6 using my Homo Sapiens Bronze Age with a cursive italic nib. The ink is Taccia Budounezu.
For the first time in years, I stopped using my Plotter, but I still follow my plan. Usually I run my life out of my two notebooks - the Plotter and the A6 everyday notebook, but right now I’m down to just the A6 - the Life Noble Note in Grid. Everything goes into it - plans, notes, article outlines, stray thoughts, lists. I do still decorate my pages with stickers and washi tape when I can, but that’s about it. Everything goes into it.
Cat washi. Washi cat. CAT. (I like to number my pages by hand)
Yesterday I was thinking, it’s Spring, time to break out my greens and pinks and teals I’m not feeling it right now. That’s ok. Whatever works.
This works: an elegant line of the cursive smooth italic nib; a fast-drying purplegrey. I’m enjoying it — it’s comforting, it’s familiar, and it’s reliable. It’s probably boring, which is not a bad thing. My stationery basics are an anchor in a turbulent world.