Planting a garden of notes and ideas
How our ideas, thoughts, and experiences create wild, thriving ecosystems
The Webs We Weave is a free weekly newsletter on being in flux, staying connected to ourselves and our creativity, and feeling more connected in the world.
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In the winter of 2019, just a couple of months after the whirlwind of planning a wedding and getting married (!) I led my first-ever online class.
The program, called Ignite, was all about journaling and it was magic. It was a teeny cohort of brilliant women who all had some connection to journaling or personal writing in some form. We gathered for six weeks of cozy, casual live sessions that were equal parts class, rich conversation, and real-time independent writing.
And together, through an entirely-unscripted meandering conversation about the whys behind our practices and our writing-related desires, we stumbled onto this brilliant concept of your ‘Buddy.’
The concept of a Buddy as we defined it was simple: a singular notebook that served the role of trusted sidekick and held all. the. things.
For some their Buddy was a single notebook; for others, it was a bundle of a few different journals that served slightly different purposes. But the common thread for all of us was that our Buddy was a trusted companion, a vessel that could evolve and shape-shift alongside us as we needed it to, mirroring our own growth and supporting us however we needed it.
In the years since teaching Ignite, my Buddy has become an anchor in my daily life.
Last week I wrote about what happens in my body when I don’t heed the call to make notes, and my Buddy (currently an A5 2023 Hobonichi Techo Cousin Avec) is consistently the first thing I reach for when I viscerally need to get something out of my head and onto the page. It travels with me around my house during the day in my house basket, it gets packed in my carry-on when I go on vacation, it’s rarely more than an arm’s length away.
While the concept of my Buddy has remained a constant, its exact shape has mutated over time.
In the beginning, reaching for the same notebook no matter what was exactly the level of simplicity and friction-free decision making I needed.
I loved that it eliminated the, “I have a thing to write down! But where do I put it?” dilemma and instead, it just held everything: random shower thoughts, brain-dumps, bouts of long-form journaling, spontaneous lists, notes from courses I took or workshops I attended, periodic tarot spreads, project mind maps and brainstorms… all held together by a makeshift Bullet Journal-style index inside the front cover.
But as time went on and I kept using the system, I found myself craving something different. A bit more room to spread out, the flexibility to bounce between a few different modes and containers, but still within the cozy confines a contained ecosystem.
As I’ve settled more deeply into my practices, I’ve gone from thinking of my Buddy as a singular vessel that houses my notemaking practice, to watching it organically expand and morph into something more like a garden; something less fixed, and more alive. 🌱
When I’m in my practice of writing down the goings-on from my inner world, I'm not just offloading in the name of mental white space or relief. I'm creating intentional separation between my ideas and myself—which is to say, I’m creating something new. Something vital and wild.
When we sow our thoughts and ideas somewhere outside our minds, we plant gardens—whole ecosystems that have boundless potential to grow, and evolve, and bear unexpected fruit over time.
I now understand the acts of noticing + chronicling what goes on in my inner landscape as planting little seeds—and in time, seeing what takes. Every fleeting idea, every feeling I can’t shake, every insight that sparkles, every worry that haunts me, every experience worth remembering, every idea that arrives out of thin air, every open task, open question, fear, thread, observation… is a seed.
Some have natural homes: today’s tasks go in a planner, the unfiltered brain dump goes in my journal. But for others, which garden bed they wind up planted in is fundamentally less important than the act of planting them somewhere. And then with enough time and cultivation, the garden naturally grows: in size, in richness, and in the web of interdependence that connects the individual pieces.
And this is where the tension lies.
The part of me who loveeeees the decisive simplicity of one notebook for everything must also come to terms with the fact that literal years might pass between the moment you capture this thing, and the moment you really understand where it should go, how it connects, and what to do with it.
There’s a push-pull between the satisfaction of knowing exactly where something belongs and how it will be used, and the thrill of not yet knowing; of planting something outside myself with big hopes for how it might bloom… and then having to surrender and wait to see how things shake out.
We don't have to know where an idea will lead or what purpose a note will ultimately serve for it to belong in our garden.
Cultivating a garden, an ecosystem of notes and ideas over the long haul is a true act of creative courage. And rather than attempting to force the constraints of a particular timing, plan, or system, I think our invitation is really to trade in our desire for certainty with humble patience and devotion.
To keep listening for resonance.
To keep planting the seeds.
To keep tending to our notemaking with patience and wonder.
To keep honoring what needs to die off to compost, and what pops up perennially.
To keep asking what needs tending to, and what needs weeding.
To keep holding onto belief that the right things will sprout in right time.
🍁 Drawn To
Short notice alert! The wonderful Justine Taromino is co-hosting a live workshop this Wednesday, September 20 at 6pm EST. Embodying the Season will be a cozy, intuitive gathering to welcome the equinox, wave goodbye to summer, deep dive into seasonal shifts, explore seasonal embodiment practices, and do some reflecting/journaling for this transitional time of the year.
👀 Eyeballing
This feels borderline cruel to share—but somewhere in the time between learning about this workshop on How to Write a Poem and finalizing this newsletter, it apparently sold out 😩 Hopefully this means
will offer it again…!💭 Still Thinking About
This American Life is reliably great, but the most recent episode had my full attention from start to finish. As someone who’s been thinking a lot this year about friendships and friendship breakups, I was captivated by the delicate and honest ways this episode explored multiple facets of these complex topics. (Plus, it also includes a hilarious introductory anecdote from Ira himself.) So, so wonderful and thought provoking. Listen here.
✨ Weekly Dose of Internet Delight
Until next time,
Michelle
Love this 🙏🏼 If I don't write it, maybe it didn't happen? Q: do you keep your Buddies? I'm considering a ceremonial fire for the boxes and bins of journals I've kept since childhood...