Comfortable in My Own Moleskine

I fumble around desperately in my shoulder bag for my little black book and a pen, as I often do when inspiration strikes, tossing things aside frantically before the moment passes. In the back of my mind, there is always a distinct sense of anxiety that my sacred book could be missing from my bag altogether, laying bare my shame for whomever was destined to find it.

This little black book is not a book of lovers---no---I am not that popular. Or that sexy. It is a book of dreams. Or, more accurately, a composite of poems, grocery lists, notes to myself, affirmations, exercises I’ve made up to heal past traumas, doodles my daughter drew which are strangely relevant to the flow of the book, low-carb recipes and weight loss tips, job openings, stand up comedy sketches, ideas for films, ideas for songs, ideas for books, ideas for businesses, ideas for blogs, ideas for how I would perfectly curate my life-- if only I felt in control of it.

“I am a fucking mess,” I think, as I unearth my prized black leather Moleskine finally, pressing it close to my chest and inhaling all of it’s disorganized pages. It doesn’t smell like cigarettes anymore, nor does it have stuck to it the bits of loose tobacco that would have sedimented down in the nether regions of my bag only two years ago. “THAT, my babaaay,” I think to myself, “... is the smell of hope for the future”, I nod gleefully. And sumptuous leather. Also, a little bit of bottom-purse smell, but mostly, the smell of progress. I exhale in relief. My completely private, safe space that swaddles all of my deepest thoughts in sexy, grown-up black leather, had been protected again by its accidental submergence into my excessive clutter.

“EDIT that!” I say out loud, in the grocery store cereal aisle, holding up my pointer finger to the sky in revelation. “I am not a fucking mess. I am a perfect, divine being, on an Earth mission, in a human body, and I love you, Amy. No matter what, I love you. Look at you--you’re getting groceries, you’re taking care of your daughter alone, you showered today, you quit smoking, you might be fat now, but at least you don’t smoke and you are doing a grea--.” “Excuse me, can I just---you’re blocking the raisin bran--can I just grab…,” a man stammers as he gives me a series of looks ranging from baffled to judgmental to, dare I say, romantically curious.

Hey, I still got it-- even if I have put on a few dozen “el bees”. Anyway, I’m more Rom-Com-eccentrically-quirky single-mom working-on-herself, than depressingly-unkempt crazy-lady on food stamps, even though technically, I am on food stamps. This is on account of me being young still, in my early thirties, and relatively hot, according to losers in grocery stores at least.

Crap, I was zoning out. “Oh yeah, of course,” I smile, opening my eyes exaggeratedly widely, not bothering to appear normal. It’s a game I play with myself; i find that being willing to purposefully look stupid helps to cultivate desensitization to criticism. In other words, I am actively working on improving my sense of not-giving-a-fuck what others think. I scooch my cart over to the side of the aisle where I can inappropriately station myself to write in my book. This is likely the only outing I will have all week, and also the only alone time that I get, so I tend to milk it.

This time is different, though. An unexpected familiar face rises like the moon above my little black book. “Amy?”.....It is an old neighbor, someone who is not particularly a friend. But then, no one is. My heart is like the year 2020: disappointingly closed to most people for the indefinable future. I humor her for a while. I really do love to talk. She tells me about how well she is doing; she’s remarried and has bought a house in a well-off neighborhood. “I’m so happy for you,” I say emphatically, putting my actual feelings of jealousy and sadness aside. Telling others what they want to hear is just one of the many services I offer that enable them to walk away uplifted. Somehow, I am always on the giving end of that. These are the things that make me both dead inside, and also, hilarious. I sigh, as I realize now I have forgotten what I was going to write, and I settle for, “Is my life a comedy or a tragedy?” as I legitimately wonder.

I open my book instead to the last page I wrote-- a list. Yeah, that’s about right. I am always listing things. Particularly, on how to get my life together, how to make more money, how to lose weight, find a good man. If only I could love myself enough to stop trying to change myself all the time. I turn the page: a confession about how I exist only as a dynamic in relation to someone else, as if stories, realities even, are conflicting. “Can two people’s conflicting stories both be true? What about four people’s stories? Or eight billion? If I don’t exist to others as I see myself, do I exist?” That is a thing I still wonder. And then, a note to myself: “Relax. Things Fall Into Place. You are the hero of your own story.” “It is hard to believe that,” I think. Affirmations can be so stupid. if you don’t believe it, saying it just makes you a liar. I sigh, and get back to shopping, before my mother has a conniption fit about how long I have been gone, leaving her with my child.

Arriving home, I wrestle multiple grocery bags to the door, keys in hand and poised for my exasperated entry. “Hi, mommy!,” I hear the sweetest human voice say, as if a cherub has sucked in helium from a heaven balloon.

“Finally. It took you long enough,” my mom complains.

“There’s my baby fawn!” I throw my arms around my daughter and kiss-attack her freckled cheeks. “Mwah, mwah, mwah! Help me put away groceries and then I’ll make you something to eat, okay?”

“Ok!”

“I’m going home, I’m missing Wheel of Fortune,” my mom says begrudgingly walking away. “Ok, thanks.”

Several days pass, and there is a knock at the door. To my surprise, it is a dashing and well-dressed man in his 30’s, holding a little black Moleskine--my little black book. “I tried to tell you that you left this back at the store, but you didn’t hear me, so I had to look through to find your address.”

“Well, thank you so much for returning it,” I say, blushing hotly. “How can I repay this kindness?”

“How about dinner and list sharing?” he smiles warmly, removing his own little leather Moleskine from his inner coat pocket, “I’m Sam.”

“Amy,” I manage to communicate, disbelievingly. I didn’t even know I lost my book that evening!

“All right, Sam; dinner it is. My mom will be thrilled to watch my child again!” I say, even though he doesn’t yet know how funny that is. Oh, he will soon discover...

Shockingly, Sam laughs at what I thought to be an inside joke to myself, Andy Kaufman style.

“You read my book...,” I realize out loud.

“Well, yes, I---look, I have sort of a confession to make. Please--this is why I asked you to dinner. I’m sorry, but I seem to fit most of your boxes on your checklist entitled The Perfect Man,” he laughs with a perfect man laugh. He is definitely not the typical grocery store loser that I am used to. Whatever parts of me weren’t already dead inside are certainly dying now!

“Let me explain. I had to look through your book to find you. It was so disorganized, I had to go all through it. I couldn’t help but to read it along the way. Your writings are so captivating, Amy. Anyway, I mentioned one of your business ideas to a friend of mine--he’s an investor. I really didn’t mean to infringe on your privacy. That part was accidental, but he wants to buy it. If you will accept the offer, he has given me the first installment, a down payment.” He produces a check from inside his leather book, unfolds it, and hands it to me. $20,000. I’m speechless, except for the millions of words my face must be saying. That is a lot of money for anyone. That is even more money for someone like me. Sam smiles at me kindly. “I’d still like to take you to dinner sometime soon. You can think about the offer. Here’s my card.”

“I don’t need to think about it, Sam. Yes to everything.”

He smiles. “Pick you up Saturday at 7?” I nod, surreally.

Sam leaves, and I catch my breath, blinking several times at the number on the check in my hand, to make sure it’s real. Then, I open my book to the last page, and unexpectedly, there is something new written there in sharp, neat cursive:

“In the end, embodying the hero doesn’t mean doing something extraordinary, so much as it is about doing better than what you started with. It’s about rising to mediocrity, when you started off being forced to give everything to everyone, and having no idea how to exist for yourself. It’s about being on food stamps, when you might have ended up on drugs if your path had played out slightly differently. It might not look like progress to most people, so it’s a good thing that you practice not caring what other people think. It’s about seeing yourself as your best possible version, even if you are the only one who can see how far you’ve come. It’s about giving yourself what you never had, and being who you never thought you could. Vulnerable. Honest. An open book. A valid story in the stream of human stories, no matter how conflicting. You are this Moleskine: a storehouse of poetic fragilities, soulful desires, loving inscriptions of unconditional acceptance, willful attempts to improve, and expressions of sadness and failure, all on your way to succeeding. And that makes you not only exist; it makes you extraordinary.”

-Sam

Tearfully, I breathe in the pages of his words, and they smell like love, not bottom-purse. They smell like love.