"Pillow Book"?

I fell in love with Vivian Swift's intriguing "travel" journal, When Wanderers Cease to Roam. Given to me over Christmas by someone who understands my proclivity toward the quirky, the beautiful, and the everyday, this "journal of staying put" genuinely inspired me to "reconnect to the beauty I've been missing" (Avett Brothers reference - these will be aplenty). The book is an art journal of Swift's travels as well as her everyday realities - the afternoon teas she enjoys, the way in which a pretty dress can make one happy, the love of a stray pet, even if you already own one too many. It is joy and comfort, the occasional bittersweet, wit and sarcasm; reflections on those moments and things that perhaps aren't as insignificant as initial impressions might otherwise suggest. That's what I hope this blog becomes - a personal journey through the little things, those bits and pieces that make me laugh or smile or cry, a journey I think it would be fun to share.

As the above suggests, tangents are my friend. Back to "Pillow Book," a concept Swift references in her blog, "How I Make Mountains out of my Molehill Life" (definitely check this out). Based on The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon (translated by Ivan Morris, 1991), Swift describes a pillow book as "a generic term for a kind of diary that women in ancient Japan kept, a loose collection of everyday notes and unsent letters that they kept in the drawer of their wooden pillows." "One day soon, books might be obsolete. But Pillows? Never!" "What's in your pillow book?" 2/3/2010