My bookbag was stolen today. Inside was a granny smith apple, a notebook, a library book, and a friend's frisbee. Hardly the heist of the century and I'm not so distraught or even prickled save for the notebook that had been filled to the brink with at least two month's worth of poetry, stories, abstractions, drawings, notes, prose, recollections, dreams, and feelings. A few more pages and I would have retired it to the box in my closet where sleep all my other notebooks going back even so far as Kindergarten.

I wish I could have been there when the thief unzipped. Which prize do you think he valued most? A copy of Pride and Prejudice or the disc? Would he have even thought to look through the notebook before he dumped the bag and its contents in the handiest garbage bin?

Words come easy and it won't be long before I fill another journal and then another after and of course some are filled faster than others and some seem to go on forever. The annoyance is that now these memories are gone. I fill these books not because I wish them to be published but because they make me think and more importantly they take me back to who I was when I wrote them. To me they are more accurate than photographs and each page is a vivid memory. Every doodle is a return.

I sometimes think I should transfer this hobby to the computer for ease of organization and for confidence in security. But no, even after this unfortunate occurrence (which I have already deemed karmic retribution for an earlier misdeed) I shouldn't think to stop using my old analog pen. There's character to it and the satisfaction of seeing myself on paper. A typed thought is as easily yours as it is mine and in my scrawl I have proof of temporality.

How important are tangible memories? I feel that if I didn't have my notebooks I would forget it all within days. But looking back through years of paper build up I can recall the specific images to the color and all that's really there is some dried up ink. What value should we put on memories and what feelings should we have when they've been taken from us? Right now I don't feel horrible but maybe someday I'll feel the pang of a gap. Or maybe I won't. Because who knows exactly what it is that I'm missing? Just a hole measuring a few months, the only memories retained are the ones my brain will remember.

But with these digibites I shall at least  remember the stealing. And with the stealing I'll have the memory of lost memory. And isn't that something?