Field notes revisited

One of those weekends that passes in a space-y haze, where you’re not quite sure what you did or why you feel a bit down. But T nudged me toward a good remedy, a solo walk in the park before dinner. I opted to leave my phone at home, keeping my pockets light and my memorializing analog.

I took my old birding route, flipping through my observations notebook and reviewing notes from Octobers past. It’s been five years since I wrote in the book (why? why does any habit fade?), but I added a new entry today, recording the five wood ducks I saw zooting through the reeds (and the chirps and squeaks I heard!). I whispered some Mary Oliver while kneeling at the water’s edge before meandering back home.

It didn’t flip the day from down to up, nor did it fix things completely. But a change of scene and pace always helps, even if just in some small way.

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Let’s try a new format today: title and tags.

• “how to find meaning in ordinary days” – embracing the mundane (via Sameer [that piece by Sameer, “Thinking about retirement, prematurely”, is worth a read in its own right])
• “What person thinks person knows” – learning and working, one and the same
• “Mark” – profile of a puzzling figure
• “Stop Choosing Tools. Start Building Them.” – little models for historical research
• “InterPARES Symposium – Keeping Evidence: Archives, AI and Trust in Public Records” – wish I could go!!
• “Incremental versus iterative.” – different words, often confused
• “We’re going to need default hard budget caps on pretty much everything” – cloud money is hard
• “Thank you, Alberta” – ode to a country
• ”Undercover restorers fix Paris landmark’s clock” – caring, so much (via Kottke)

All the best for the week ahead!

Lucas