Dear Friends,
I started Forest Notebooks as an outlet for my observations, ideas, memories, and musings. My fervent hope is that I can, through writing, catalog one small life—mine—in a way that allows me to come to some sort of… grace, while also providing friendship, company, and comfort for readers along the way.
By “grace,” I mean peace, beatitude, trust, tranquility. A certain acceptance of the world, even when it’s hard or incomprehensible. Especially when it’s hard and incomprehensible.
My favorite writers are those who range far and wide, who telescope from the smallest details to the grandest landscapes, both literal and metaphoric.
I’ve often bemoaned the fact that I apparently lack a niche, that I tend to range all over the place, writing about food, sex, love, family, parenting, loss, meditation, mental illness, money, memories, addiction, alcoholism, personal development. When I think about focusing on one of these, I became irritable and frustrated.
Life is a complicated amalgam of all of these things, isn’t it?
For Christmas, I got a book called Desert Notebooks: A Road Map for the End of Time, by Ben Ehrenreich. I find it incredibly heartening. Ehrenreich goes from describing the assemblage of wadded papers and tin cans that blow onto his fake lawn to Pizarro’s awe-struck descriptions of sophisticated Aztec cities to climate change and the Trump era.
Referring to his own work as “notebooks” allows the author to range widely (and wildly), with no apparent goal in mind. It gives him a place and a method to explore, wonder, dream, and vent. The hope, of course, is that the resulting amalgam winds up being greater than the sum of its parts.
Forest Notebooks is titled in obvious homage to Ehrenreich’s work. I live on the doorstep of the forest myself, a place I visit daily. Forest Notebooks will be my reckoning with my own mind, a place to tease out what I think and feel, and hopefully to grow. My hope is that my musings can provide some modicum of comfort, value, or at least company along the way.
Thank you for joining me on my journey toward health, wholeness, and self-realization. I guarantee we’ll fall off the tracks a-plenty, and that’s okay. It’s not only okay, it’s life. It’s human, and it’s to be expected. We’re flawed creatures. Let’s fumble our way together along the journey, notice our experiences, and cultivate self-compassion and forgiveness. Life isn’t easy, but if you know how to look, it is often beautiful. Even when, especially when, it is painful.
Welcome to Forest Notebooks
I look forward reading your notebook-Frank Tapia