I wrote this on the bus this morning:

I wrote this on the bus this morn­ing. I gen­er­ally hate writ­ing on the bus because it always seems so pompous. I don’t like to come off as some­one who thinks he’s an impor­tant writer, or as some­one who’s look­ing for atten­tion. Then I try to tell myself not to care what other peo­ple think, because the fact is that all I’m doing is writ­ing in a note­book. And then I pull out my notebook.

The note­book itself, how­ever, may be the impor­tant detail. I bought a new ruled, pocket Moleskine to keep track of my ideas. It cost me a pretty penny, but I’m hop­ing it’ll last me a while. What I used to do was use a text file saved on my desk­top when at my com­puter, or my Dominion Blueline A9 (com­ing in at a hefty 9 1/4″ x 7 1/4″) when trav­el­ling. The Moleskine is per­fect because it’s small enough to carry on the bus, and too small (a pocket-filling 3.5 x 5.5 inches) for other peo­ple to read over my shoul­der. I can’t stand it when other pas­sen­gers nosily glance at my words.

It has a rib­bon to keep track of the cur­rent page, a small pocket in the back to keep loose items, an elas­tic to keep the pages together and pre­vent dam­age, and some of the smoothest uncoated paper I’ve ever used. Perfectly, all of the things I look for in a note­book. This doesn’t mean that I’m going to leave my A9 in desue­tude; I’ve rel­e­gated it to keep­ing track of mis­cel­la­neous notes, lists, songs, etc., recently the only task I have been using it for. The Moleskines also come with a lit­tle card in the back explain­ing an inter­est­ing history:

It is two cen­turies now that Moleskine has been the leg­endary note­book of European artists and intel­lec­tu­als, from Van Gogh to Henri Matisse, from the expo­nents of the his­tor­i­cal avant-garde move­ments to Ernest Hemingway. Many are the sketches and notes, ideas and emo­tions that have been jot­ted down and har­boured in this trust­wor­thy pocket-size travel com­pan­ion before being turned into famous pic­tures or the pages of beloved books.

This long-standing tra­di­tion was con­tin­ued by writer-traveller Bruce Chatwin who used to buy his Moleskines at a Paris sta­tionery shop in Rue de l’Ancienne Comedie where he would always stock up before embark­ing on one of his jour­neys. Over the years he had devel­oped a ver­i­ta­ble rit­ual. Before using them he would in fact num­ber the pages, writ­ing on the inside his name and at least two addresses across the world, and a mes­sage promis­ing a reward for any­one find­ing and return­ing the note­book in case of it being lost.

He even sug­gested this method to his friend Luis Sepulveda, when he gave him a pre­cious Moleskine as a present for a jour­ney they were plan­ning to under­take together in Patagonia. And there was no doubt as to how pre­cious it was, given that at the time even the last Moleskine man­u­fac­turer, a small family-run firm of Tours, had dis­con­tin­ued pro­duc­tion in 1986. “Le vrai mole­sk­ine n’est plus” was the short and curt state­ment of the owner of the sta­tionery shop where Chatwin had ordered one hun­dred before leav­ing for Australia. Despite hav­ing lit­er­ally swept up all the mole­sk­ines he could find, they were not enough.

Now, the Moleskine is back again. This silent and dis­creet keeper of an extra­or­di­nary tra­di­tion which has been miss­ing for years has set out again on its jour­ney. A wit­ness to con­tem­po­rary nomadism, it can once again pass from one pocket to another to con­tinue the adventure.

The sequel still waits to be writ­ten and its blank pages are ready to tell the story.

Now I feel free to do this. Write what I want, when I want, where I want. I love writ­ing in this thing.

I’m back.