I was talking to some friends the other day about how we organize those little things we want to remember. Some touted that they opened a file in their computer and stuck these niggly facts there. Others have various notebooks that serve as a haven for the minutia. I, however, stick to little notes squashed within a giant squeeze clip. You know the kind? Those spring loaded soft handled ones that close up your chip bags? I have several different crushing clips. Most of these have been garnered from various medical equipment or home health organizations from exhibition halls at meetings for physical therapists. These enterprising companies must think therapists really need to have gigantic clips on their desks to remind them of the many exhibitors they walked past at the meeting. 'Revolutionary Rehab' screams one; University Hospital Las Vegas, cries another. My favorites are ones that can be stood up so the conventional notes take less space than those that lie flat. One - that has 'Health Services' written on it with a convenient 1-8oo number - instead of being a flat squishy clip - jams the notes up against a rounded buttress, so the whole clip lies flat but the notes stay upright. Quite clever - and although the notes placed in it are inconveniently permanently curled from that rounded buttress, it remains my 'go to' clip. I keep all the passwords, security key words and user names for the ever growing number of places I visit on the World Wide Web.
At some place in time, I was told by some computer nerd that keeping all these sacred words and numbers should never be kept in a notebook! What if you lost it? And keeping it on your computer was stupid too. What if your system was hacked? So I did the only thing my disorganized mind could think of - I chronicled these precious keys to the kingdoms on little slips of torn papers, sticky back notes and old business cards. Then I smashed all these slips of paper, in no particular order, between the jaws of all these clips. Thus they remain in one place - of course if I wish to discover - say the password to get into my yahoo account - it may take the same amount of time it would take for me to walk to Nevada where that hospital resides.
In another of those delightful clasps I keep all my important business cards - doctors, therapy centers, the dog groomers, my hairdresser. I am not sure how I would ever call any of these people if I didn't have that clip. In a smaller clip I keep the phone numbers of the important people in my life. Others keep those numbers on their phone, but sadly my phone has disappeared more than once, while the undignified jaw clip sits on my messy desk securing those phone numbers and addresses just for me.
If I had a memory for these things at one time, it is long gone, but, thank goodness, my lowly clips remain faithfully fastening those bits of paper - tying me to people, places and things. I can't imagine that a robber would look twice at those silly clips - if they could even locate them among the detritus on my desk!
My writing process is similar to those raggedy slips of paper - bits and pieces of my life that are scrunched together within a story. The story is like the clip that binds all those little thoughts together. I adore taking out one of those little paper scraps and building an imaginary scene around it, then pasting together a thread of imaginary scenes that becomes a story. That's what writing is like for me - binding ideas together in a clip!
What's your method of sorting out and retaining your collection of VIS (Very Important Stuff)? I would love to hear from you! Comments are welcome!
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