Reine’s Notebooks

I recently came across an Instagram post on Tsundoku, the Japanese term referring to the accumulation of books bought with the intention of reading them but piled high in ones’ house. Guilty. I do have a large “to be read” pile that has reached record highs as I approached the submission date of my PhD. However, the pictures of these more or less orderly stacks reminded me of an other habit of mine: collecting notebooks. 

I stacked them to consider physically the extent of the problem. Some are new. Some are falling apart. Some have one line written in them, an intent. Most are filled from cover to cover not only with thoughts, poems, comments and quotes, but also pictures, plane tickets of trips to be forever remembered, tickets to exhibition or play that triggered emotions that I might still be contending with. 

My digital notebook is also brimming. What did I write in the previous 30 days? A list of spices to get at the supermarket alongside a question: “What of multidisciplinary performative practices where the active figuration of the body results in an abstraction?” I don’t intend to answer, but I have decided to share. 

Tsundoku is as indulgent as it is useless if the books remain unread. Resolution: as I am making my way through my to-read pile, I will share my notebook to create an accumulation of dialogues.