It was an unfortunate accident, unless you believe that there are no real accidents, just things we didn’t know would happen. There’s a difference.

I had filled my watering cans at the kitchen sink and set them on the counter. I intended to mix in some plant fertilizer before watering my brood. But for a couple of hours I turned my mind to something else and when I came again to the counter, I noticed that it was wet. Very wet. One of the cans evidently has a small leak. The counter would have been much wetter had it not been for my day planner, which soaked up all it could on every single page. It was dripping, heavy and sodden.

My day planner is not only my reminder of things to come, it is my memory of everything past. Most every day I record happenings and feelings, questions and observations, knowing that I can look back and say “on that day I did something, there it is.” Seven months of memory now is smeared, faded, crinkled and very sad looking.

I have many years of this same planner. I like its style, the amount of space it allows, and its size that fits easily in my purse – not too big, not too small. It goes with me almost everywhere I go. It is one of the first things I look at in the morning, and one of the last things I check at night. It’s a bit precious to me, and I’ve been known to get despondent when I can’t locate it and think it’s lost.

So, I’ve done what any resourceful writer would probably do, I ordered another one. If I can get the pages apart and they are still readable, I will copy every single word into the new one. I don’t care how long it takes.

Until the new one comes, I will have to write somewhere. I guess it will be here. This spot on the internet started out as a journal, a place to think in print. Writing is therapy, you know. It’s my way of checking in on myself to see how I’m handling the mundane, the trivial, the disappointments, frustrations, and mysteries of my own little life. For a while, it will be pretty mild, unimpressive, probably nothing quotable or wise, just life. However it is, it will get written. I have needed to do it in a more consistent, disciplined way, and now I will.

Maybe this soaked planner is just the result of an accident. But, if I decide to respond to it by writing more, making it a catalyst, using it to change a pattern, make a new habit, well then, it seems to me it’s more than just an accident. It could have been planned, only not by me.

That’s today’s story and I’m sticking to it.