Seniority Report: Today, Week Six

She lives her life in scraps of paper. Large, curling ‘l’s and sweeping ‘s’s tumbling across the page, broad stroke lines overlapping; thoughts started but not finished, ideas written out and reexamined. They become lists quickly crumpled into balls lost within the depths of a bag; important reminders pinned on boards in colored ink, neatly printed.

Events are forgotten because pamphlets have been misplaced, yet a party is remembered in the flipping through of pages in a textbook within which an invitation was formerly slipped.

Progress is measured by boxes checked and numbers crossed off, while a lack thereof is hidden by new lists in new margins, the turn of a page or a new week on the calendar.

Maybe it is in the precise and rhythmic taps of the keyboard that efficiency is maximized, yet stress is compounded. Maybe it is in the deliberate scrawls and familiarly looped creations of handwriting that personality is more evident, but there is more room for error.

“Penciling in an appointment” becomes a figure of speech with device calendars streamlining the organizational process, alarms set and reminders turned on. Writing a quick iPhone note maintains date as a temporal marker, leaving unending room to edit again with no carbon copy.

Scribbling on paper a thought to hang on to for later depends on the pocket it is crammed into and the mind that reaches for it later. It is easy to lose yet maybe more important to hold on to.