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By Emily Davis
Adapted from the inaugural entry of my summer journal on June 23, 2019
I wonder if all writers have the same feeling when they get a new notebook—this feeling of wonder, excitement, anticipation. The hairs on my arms are actually standing straight as I imagine the stories I’ll write and ideas I’ll ponder. Something about a brand new notebook with clean pages just gives me shivers of excitement. It’s like looking forward to a new school year: all of the parties you’ll go to, friends you’ll make, things you’ll learn, places you’ll go…
But I’ve found in reflecting on the past years, that the exciting things I dream of are almost never actualized. I spend the evenings in my room with a book and have and early night. I find people I love and hang out exclusively with them. I learn, but forget. And I find myself a patron of the same old coffee shops and restaurants.
“Next year I’ll try something new.” “Next year will be more adventure-filled.” Why do I think so? I always think I need that blank notebook to start an exciting story. I can’t use one that’s been written in, lest the few used pages—with all of their hum-drum updates—contaminate the rest of the notebook. How silly!
I have so many notebooks lying around with only a few pages written in them: things I started but didn’t have the passion to continue. So what? Somethings are fleeting and feeble. Why do I insist on abandoning the clean pages left?
I’m reminded hear of a British idiom I first heard on the Great British Baking Show: “crack on.” I have purposely neglected to research the origins, meanings, etc. for this phrase, because I don’t want it to contaminate the meaning I feel it has before I’ve been able to articulate it fully myself.
“Crack on…” “Crack—” there’s imperfection implied; something didn’t go according to plan. I first heard it in the context of a baking show. I can’t remember the exact moment, but I’m sure it must have been something like a crème-pat didn’t set, or dough was underproved, or a cake was overbaked. Something wasn’t right, but the baker couldn’t throw away their creation and start over because they must have something to present at the end of the time. They had to “crack on—” make do with what’s been done and try to turn it around as best they can.
I think I am too much of a perfectionist. I want every step from start to finish to be entirely flawless. Should one thing go amiss, what does it matter that the whole should crumble and fall?
Though very rarely, if ever, does everything work out perfectly. There will always be pages with scribbles or pages filled with boring nonsensical projects of dead passions. But that’s only those pages. Why must I ruin the others too by not giving them the chance, a proper chance, to be filled with stories that excite and enthrall or ideas that make you scratch your head or gasp out loud?
I challenge myself to “crack on” when passions for something die, when dreams don’t come true, when time seems wasted, when things aren’t perfect. I challenge myself to treat every blank page with the same sense of wonder and amazement I do every blank notebook.
Emily Davis is a McConnell Scholar in the Class of 2022. She is studying business economics and political science at the University of Louisville.