Note to self

I have one of those little magnetic notepads on my fridge, the kind where you write to-do lists and scrawl the groceries you want for the week. This week, mine included cinnamon tea (so good for the frigid days of January), white vinegar, hot sauce, and spinach. This pad is plain - just blank lines with no decoration. In the past, though, I have had grocery list pads with borders of flowers, a la William Morris, or festooned with cats, books, cartoon dogs, and Walter Gropius quotations. When I used those pads, I always managed to tuck my list into my pocket or purse on my way out the door. But the plain list, dear reader, I promptly left on the fridge, and came home instead with cat litter (necessary) and peppermint hot cocoa (distinctly unneccesary, but still welcome). When I returned, I looked in dismay at the innocent, forgotten list on the fridge, where it still remains. I shall try again next week to remember cinnamon tea, white vinegar, hot sauce, and spinach - although, based on past experience, my chances of remembering the list are not good.

This quotidian, if a little frustrating, episode, put me in mind of a distant memory. In an art theory class I took, many moons ago, our professor asked what appeared to be a simple question: what is writing for? It was one of those foreboding grey November days, far too early in the morning for such heady questions, the kind of morning wherein no one meets the professor’s eye and everyone is silently wondering if anyone actually made it all the way through the assigned Derrida reading - spoiler warning: no one had. His question was met with discomforted and unwilling silence. (Having done some teaching myself now, I know only too well the many and varied attempts students make to avoid the professor’s gaze, evidently believing what my cat believes: that if I cannot see you, you cannot see me.) Then, slowly, the usual list of undergrad answers trickled haltingly out: communication, expression, posterity. With some coaxing, we arrived at an interesting conundrum - do we write a grocery list for posterity? For expression?
“To remember things,” came a timid offering from somewhere in the second row. 
"So you leave the list at home?” came the reply. No, we all agreed - the whole point of the list was to help you remember to buy oranges and baking powder, which it could not do if said list had been left forlornly on your kitchen table - or, in my case, still hanging on the fridge door.

What we came to, in the end, is that sometimes, writing something down allows it to completely leave your mind - writing is, sometimes, for forgetting. But, at least for me, the decoration on the border of my grocery list pad actually helps me to remember to…remember. In a similar way, the telegrams of this week’s episode are very obviously about communication - even when, as in chapter 1 of Anne of Green Gables, they do a poor job of sharing accurate or complete information. But they also became about expression, about decoration, about play. It didn’t take long for writers and poets of yesteryear to get comfortable, even creative, with telegram style, pushing on the limits of space and form to find exhilerating, challenging, or charming ways to write. Perhaps the most charming instance of this kind of play with form comes from Victor Hugo, who, when he wanted to inquire of his publisher how Les Miserables was faring, sent a telegram comprised only of ‘?’. In response, his publisher sent back the effusive but brief ‘!’

Or what about Dorothy Parker, who, in a fit of writer’s block, sent to her publisher:

"THIS IS INSTEAD OF TELEPHONING BECAUSE I CANT LOOK YOU IN THE VOICE. I SIMPLY CANNOT GET THAT THING DONE YET NEVER HAVE DONE SUCH HARD NIGHT AND DAY WORK NEVER HAVE SO WANTED ANYTHING TO BE GOOD AND ALL I HAVE IS A PILE OF PAPER COVERED WITH WRONG WORDS. CAN ONLY KEEP AT IT AND HOPE TO HEAVEN TO GET IT DONE. DONT KNOW WHY IT IS SO TERRIBLY DIFFICULT OR I SO TERRIBLY INCOMPETENT. DOROTHY"

Sing it, Dorothy.

So, just like my floral grocery list, telegrams moved beyond the practical, venturing into artistic expression and communicating those things that go beyond dates, facts, and figures - moving on, instead, to emotions, creativity, and invention. So, dear reader, I hope as you brave January’s chill, you find those eclamation-point-worthy moments to play, create, write - even if it is only a grocery list.

Jennifer