Sara Yen
I pull out the top layer of the drawer next to my bed, the sliding of the plastic making a loud and squeaky noise. I reach in and grab my red leather Moleskine notebook.

Running my finger over its surface, I notice the notebook’s lightly textured leather, smooth with only fine wrinkles and creases. An elastic band holds the journal closed, slightly darker than the cherry red color of the leather. A metallic bookmark ribbon of similar scarlet holds the place of a page inside the journal, fraying a bit at the end.

Slipping off the band, I open the notebook flat and flip to a random page. Thin grey lines mark the creamy off-white pages, filled with my rushed inconsistent handwriting, most letters messily connecting to the next. I page through the rest of the thin pages, written on by a variety of gel pens, dull pencils and feathering fountain pen ink.

The Moleskine was a gift from my grandma last summer to take with me to a camp in Hong Kong. In my journal, I made a list of everything I did during that trip and wrote about whatever I found interesting. The notebook was a way for me to jot down all the amazing moments that I didn’t want to forget, allowing them to be preserved in writing more clearly than my memory could ever recall. In this way, the fear of losing memories and forgetting the names of faces and places was gone.

I’ve always closely held the idea that years from now, I would look back and read through my thoughts and remember some of my greatest memories. Just maybe, I would remember my experiences just as how they felt in the moment.

My red leather Moleskine is and will be a treasury of the memories I’ve made and have yet to make during my high school years. Who knows what history it will record next.