I once read about an exercise where you imagine an object you desire or cherish being broken so your attachment to it isn’t so strong that you are disappointed if it breaks; of course it is broken, it was always broken, you will sagely say when your new car gets a ding in a parking lot. Sounds Buddhist, but I’ve read so much wooology it could be from just about any practice but, yes, probably Buddhist.

I have just started my third 10-year journal. I was sorry to say goodbye to the second one from Because Time Flies as it had become a powerful tool for recording things that matter to me, but the fellow who published it seems to have disappeared.

So I bought a fancy Midori one instead, smaller and beautifully designed, and I know I will make it work for me. I don’t have lovely penmanship, so this isn’t an Instagrammable pursuit. It’s a lovely book, but I’ll be using it in a utilitarian fashion, and that’s ok.

When I sat down this morning to record the events of yesterday, I automatically started writing on the page opposite yesterday’s entry, as I had for the past 10 years with the other larger book that had room for 10 years of each date per page. But this is a smaller book, and the two-page spread is for one date, so I had entered the minutiae of January 2, 2025 in January 1, 2030’s spot.

I hadn’t imagined this lovely Japanese book as already broken, but now it was, and I was happy to have that behind me, and continued on.