Seasonal Almanac

Having recently seen a friend’s i-phone in operation, I decided that I am really a pen-on-paper type person. So I bought myself a new small loose-leaf diary (or what used to be called a personal organiser). But I never imagined that getting a new diary can be such an emotional experience.

I have an old diary which I must have had for over 10 years. Every year I would buy new diary pages, put the old ones in an envelop, label it and put it away with all the past years’ entries. The notes and addresses, however, have never been replaced. So when it came to transferring the information, the task became archeological: plans that were made, titles of books of interest, dates of some significance, numbers and secret codes, notes on a meeting, information about an exhibition or a film, changing addresses of friends….. Then waves of nostalgia roll in like the tide.

Shaping the new year is really a matter of dealing with the past.