A Tale of a Traveling Notebook
Tsunamis and peacocks, PLUS fall writing workshops start in four days!
Hi Friends,
Today’s whimsical tale of a plucky, diminutive notebook wandering the island of Kauai amidst tsunami warnings and peacocks is told through both photos and words.
Before we dive into that saga, however, I want to remind you that fall writing workshops start in just a few days! If you have no interest in writing workshops, you can scroll right down to the story.
If you want to come radically unstuck and get lots of words on the page within an inspiring, supportive environment, Off-Leash Writing Workshops are the place for you! These groups involve no homework and no critique—just in-the-moment creative exploration. I have a few spots in the Tuesday Online Off-Leash Writing Workshop and the Wednesday in-person group. You do not have to call yourself a writer to benefit from this liberating practice.
On the other hand, the Intensive Memoir & Fiction Workshop, which is usually full, has one spot available for someone who thrives on feedback and regular deadlines to move their projects forward.
I also have one spot left in the regular Memoir & Fiction Workshop, which has a more relaxed pace of deadlines and includes some in-class writing and instruction as well as constructive, supportive feedback on your work.
And now, without further ado …
A Tale of a Traveling Notebook
Once there was a notebook, modest in size. Made entirely of paper, with no wire to bind her, she fit easily inside a small backpack purse. Her person, Tanya, brought her along wherever she went.
The notebook’s front and back covers were decorated with bright splashes of color. Red, yellow and orange on the front, blue, purple and green on the back. The colors overlay drawings of flowers—great cheerful blossoms peeked out here and there from beneath the vibrant hues.
Oh, that notebook was beautiful. At least Tanya thought so. And for the little notebook, that was enough.
The notebook always traveled with a pen. Sometimes more than one, if we’re being honest. She was partial to a pen that was gold on the bottom half, with tiny white beads encased in plastic on the top half. But when that pen ran out of ink, it didn’t bother her too much. She wasn’t attached. It was true that pen had been pretty, but any pen would do, as long as it had enough ink to cover her pages in delicious swirls.
This notebook loved to travel. You can just imagine her joy when she got to accompany Tanya and her 21-year-old son Daniel to the island of Kauai. The little notebook was enraptured by the lush green foliage, the patterned shadows of palms, the steady music of waves and birds, and the intoxicating fragrance of plumeria and other tropical blooms.
On the first morning in Kauai, Tanya got up early and crossed the narrow road that separated their rented condo from the ocean. Tanya plopped down in a grassy patch to watch the sunrise over the sea. She removed the notebook from her backpack purse, took out the notebook’s favorite gold and white pen, and wrote as the sun crested the clouds, bathing them both in golden light.
In moments like this, the notebook felt whole. As the pen moved across her pages, she sensed she was fulfilling her sacred purpose, the very thing she was made to do.
One day, less than a week into their stay in Kauai, the notebook was sitting on a lounge chair by a fancy hotel pool in the community of Princeville on the Western side of Kauai, when sirens began to sound. An announcement came over the hotel speakers, informing guests of a tsunami alert.
Tanya and her son were in the hotel pool at this time. This was not, strictly speaking, permitted. They had come to the hotel for a meal, which was permitted—they paid for it, after all—and then, well, snuck into the pool, for lack of a better word.
Needless to say, the notebook, Tanya and Daniel were all alarmed by this news. Tanya and Daniel exited the pool and attempted to gather more information by speaking to guests and staff members and googling around on their phones. It was around 3:30pm, and they learned that the tsunami was predicted to reach their shores at 7:17.
Soon the pool was closed, and guests on the lower levels were asked to vacate their rooms and ascend to the ninth floor lobby. Since Tanya and Daniel didn’t have a room, this part wasn’t a problem for them. They learned, however, that their condo further south was in a section of the island that was being evacuated.
The word going around was that the hotel was as good a place as any to wait out the crisis. Although quite near the ocean, it was on a hill, and had been recently retrofitted. Everything above the ninth floor was deemed safe.
It was around 4pm at this point. Tanya, Daniel and the notebook joined the hotel guests in the lobby and cafe areas to literally wait out the storm. All in all, not a bad place to be.
The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully, aside from periodic announcements and worried texts from friends and family on the mainland. Some anxious guests grilled the local staff, who appeared thoroughly unruffled, about whether staying at the hotel was truly safe.
At 7pm, as the moment of truth approached, guests gathered on the hotel balcony to watch the waves.
7:05. 7:10. 7:15 … 7:17. And … crickets.
What happened next reminded the noteboook of a time when Tanya and a friend of hers had eaten a pile of psychedelic mushrooms she’d been saving for a while, and nothing happened. The notebook remembered that day, because Tanya had filled her with intentions for what she thought would be a powerful journey. When nothing happened, Tanya and her friend had laughed and laughed.
Now, from inside Tanya’s backpack purse, the notebook could hear people saying, “Wait, I think I see something! Oh yeah! See that pattern in the waves? Those rocks weren’t exposed before, were they? The water is definitely pulling back. That means it’ll be rising. It is rising … I think … Isn’t it?”
“I want to see a tsunami!” said a kid of about eight.
No you don’t, kid, thought the notebook, but she understood the feeling.
And then, in the midst of all this, the assembled guests spotted something.
“Is that person fishing?!” someone said.
But no, it became clear. The person was not fishing. Right then and there, at the very moment the tsunami was supposed to hit … someone was paddleboarding.
“What a maniac!” someone cried out.
“Darwin Awards!” shouted someone else.
“Do you think they didn’t hear about it?”
“How could they not hear about it? The sirens have been going for hours.”
The notebook, ensconced in the backpack, was baffled. Why would a person do such a thing? Did they have a death wish? She didn’t know. But some tiny part of her envied this person their freedom, their wildness. Their courage. She could only accompany Tanya on the adventures Tanya chose to bring her on. What would she do if she had agency? Would she be cautious, like the people on this balcony, or reckless, like that paddleboarding fool?
An hour or so later, the hotel guests on the lower levels were free to return to their rooms. The area in which Tanya and Daniel’s condo was located, however, had not yet been cleared for return. They hung out in the lobby until they were the only ones left. They explained their situation to the staff: that they’d been eating at the hotel when the warning struck, and the roads were not yet cleared for their return. (They didn’t mention the pool.) The staff were kind and said they could stay as long as they liked.
Around midnight, Tanya, Daniel, and the notebook finally got the all-clear to return to their condo. The day’s adventures had left the notebook tired, but also strangely stirred up. She’d developed a taste for something she could not yet name.
The rest of the time in Kauai seemed to fly by. They visited a sculpture garden, where the notebook had fun posing with statues.
Kauai is known as the garden island. It is rich in gardens, including three National Tropical Botanical Gardens. Tanya, Daniel and the notebook visited every garden they could find. Tanya loved to photograph the notebook’s vivid colors amidst the island’s abundant flora.
There were beaches, bike rides, and a lighthouse; spectacular overlooks with heartstopping views.
The notebook’s pages became encrusted with sand. She waited patiently on the shore as Tanya and Daniel entered the waves, wishing she too could cool herself in the heavenly turquoise sea.
Once, at a restaurant, one of Kauai’s ubiquitous chickens hopped onto the table and took a bite of Daniel’s food. The server graciously replaced the meal and chased the chicken away, but it returned and returned. Tanya and Daniel laughed, and the notebook laughed with them, silently.
Oh, they had fun. But as the trip wound down, something niggled at the notebook. She had been photographed everywhere, but over the course of the trip, she had rarely been written in! She had become a kind of prop notebook, a model, prized more for her beauty than for her contents. Had she had hands, she could have counted on the fingers of one hand—okay, maybe two—the times that Tanya had actually written in her over the course of this trip. This made her sad.
Kauai was a dream, and like all dreams, it had to end. Tanya and Daniel flew to California, where Tanya helped Daniel move into his new apartment. After dropping him off, she picked up her other son, Elon, who was about to enter his senior year of high school. They began a road trip down the California coast, looking at colleges.
They stopped at UC Santa Cruz. Elon went off to wander the campus. Tanya sat down in a patch of grass and pulled the notebook from her backpack purse. She opened her up, and she wrote and wrote and wrote. It felt good to both of them, good and right. Tanya admitted to the notebook that she’d gotten carried away with the photographing. For a moment there, she’d forgotten what the core of her relationship with the notebook was built on. She’d neglected, for those moments, both the notebook’s purpose and her own.
On the way back to the car, Tanya left the zipper on her backpack purse open. The notebook hovered near the opening. They’d just had such a perfect time together, Tanya and herself. She felt close to Tanya. And yet … She remembered that crazy being on the paddleboard. In that moment, a feral longing took hold of her. She wanted what every being wants: to be free. And so, she slipped out of the purse and onto the ground. Tanya continued walking towards the car. Only later, many miles away, did Tanya notice she was gone.
Friends, it is I, Tanya, who has told you this tale. I don’t know what became of the little notebook after she departed from my presence. I hope that a student found her, reveled in her contents, and filled the remaining pages with stories and freshness of their own making. I hope that she continues to fulfill her purpose and to enjoy her moments on this precious, ever-changing earth.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this tale of the wandering notebook. If you’d like to craft your own tales, please check out my writing workshops, starting in a few days!
Love this. Maybe she surfed a tsunami back to Kauai, where she rests on a palm frond, next to a chicken, looking forward to your next visit.
Oh Tanya! What a refreshing take on a memoir! I laughed in so many places as I read the notebook's adventures... I felt connected to your creative soul as I travelled with the notebook through Hawaii's lush gardens and landscape. Loved the part when it waited for the tsunami and... 7:17 and crickets. Ha Ha ha! Wonderful photos, too.