How Notebooks Train the Eye to See

Lessons from Didion

Joan Didion famously kept a notebook not to record ‘what happened,’ but to record how it felt to be her in that moment. Today, as I flip through a worn notebook of my own, I am reminded that observation begins long before interpretation.

We often try to find the “meaning” of a moment before we have truly seen the moment itself. A notebook trains the eye to look at the discarded details—the specific way a stranger holds their umbrella, the color of the light on a brick wall at 4:00 PM, the smell of dust in an old lobby.

These unfiltered details are the raw material of truth. They don’t need to be explained; they just need to be recorded. Over time, these fragments accumulate and begin to speak to one another. They form a pattern that your conscious mind might have missed. Record one moment today that felt out of place. Do not explain it. Just let it sit on the page.

The Monroe Minute Record one moment today that felt out of place. Do not explain it.

Until the next page,
Sloane S. Monroe

Sloane Shay Monroe

I don’t write to idealize love, but to explore it honestly, with emotional precision and depth.