Losing my sketchbook recently was like losing a piece of myself. I carry it with me everywhere. It records those moments that must be drawn, like the cute old lady reading the newspaper at the
Knight Library wearing a gray coat three sizes too big – when I should be going to Spanish class. Jazz concerts, the view from my dorm room window and my friends hanging out were all moments depicted in my sketchbook.
There’s something soothing about recording the world around you – whether it is through a photograph, sketch or writing. It brings a permanence to life experiences. I am able to go back through my sketchbooks, journals and photographs and say I was there, I experienced this, and it was important enough for me to record it. I want to vividly remember what my first year of college was like years from now. My sketchbooks from years ago depict entirely different things ranging from fantastical to realistic.
I lost my sketchbook when I was watching the carnival parade in San Francisco. I stood for several hours in the hot sun, hoping to catch a glimpse of my friend who was in the parade while using my now missing-in-action sketchbook as a sun visor so I wouldn’t burn my nose. When I finally caught a glimpse of her, she disappeared behind a yellow and green float with a woman dancing inside a bubble. I was on the wrong side of the street to see her, so I ran around the block to catch a glimpse of her going past again, carrying my two coats with me. On almost any other day of the year, it’s freezing in San Francisco. After that I don’t remember carrying my sketchbook, which didn’t fit into my pocket. I didn’t realize it was gone until I was already on my way home and it was too late.
When I realized I had misplaced my sketchbook, I was practically in tears. In an instant all those memories were lost. I know that those images are still in my head and I’m sure I could remember them vividly, but it’s not the same as seeing a picture I drew or painted when I was there observing and taking it all in.
Since early in the development of humankind we have felt the need to record. As a result, we know more about the past than we ever would have known if people hadn’t felt the urge to document what they saw and did. Maybe the very sketchbook that I lost to the Mission neighborhood in San Francisco will turn up years from now and someone will be able to look at it and see exactly what I saw. My vision was immortalized in the time it took to draw a picture.
This particular sketchbook was one that I sent back and forth with my mother, so it didn’t have my drawings alone; it had hers, too. Instead of writing letters back and forth or talking on the phone, we exchanged visions. Instead of hearing or reading what she’d been up to, I could see it in front of me in a drawing. Everything from sketches of African masks that she saw to an afternoon with a couple of her friends was recorded. It was the most intimate way of keeping in touch with someone because we were sharing something that can be very personal: our sketches.
I went home depressed and sad only to find much bigger things to worry about in continuance of a crazy day, worthy of being written about in my journal. Oh well, this is close enough.
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