New Sketchbook

I filled up another sketchbook.  Well, okay; the binding was falling apart and I had a handful of pages to go.

Ever since I got a worked leather sleeve as a gift, my sketchbooks have held up much better than in the past.  The design on the leather is an old woodcut of simple country landscape and a philosopher crawling through the celestial spheres to peer at the wheels of the cosmos.

Pulling out the old book from the cover and inserting a new, blank one is sort of like driving past an old boyfriend while the new one is sitting next to you.  No.. that image is too vampiric...  

Pulling out the old book is like receiving a letter from your past self.  This old one started just after Mark and I had our marriage ceremony -- there's notes and sketches from various Bach Festival events we've attended since June 20, 2004.  There's write-ups of dreams, and records of places we've visited.  I can see when I practiced geometry by all the compass drawings.  Disneyworld.  Two whole pages of baby names.  And then there are the character portraits -- I sometimes draw characters as I'm writing them to get a better feeling for them.   

But it's time for a new book.  So I carefully open it to flex its spine, and I insert the stiff cover into the leather sleeve.  In a year or three, the new pages will be filled and worn and this now-new book will join its fellows.

Ack... this is turning into "The Shelf of Forgotten Dreams."   Gotta go get some caffeine.