On Maintaining a Paper Calendar
Every December, sometime in the second or third week, I walk down to Bartlett's on Main Street and buy a wall calendar for the coming year. It's the same brand I've been buying for at least six years now — At-A-Glance, the plain one with the large date squares and no photographs. Just a grid. Twelve months, one per page, spiral-bound at the top. I hang it on the wall next to the kitchen doorway, where I can see it when I'm making coffee.
People occasionally notice the calendar and comment on it. Usually something along the lines of, "You know your phone can do that, right?" I do know this. My phone has a calendar app. My computer has a calendar app. I have, at various points, used both. I still use the phone calendar for things that genuinely need reminders — a dentist appointment I'll forget if nothing buzzes at me, that sort of thing. But the wall calendar is different. It's not really about reminders.
The act of writing something on the calendar is a small ritual, and I've come to think the ritual matters more than the information recorded. When I write "dinner at Tom's" in the square for next Saturday, I'm doing something physical. I'm standing in my kitchen, uncapping a pen, making a mark on paper. The event becomes a little more real than it was when it existed only as a text message on my phone. There's a commitment implied by ink that doesn't exist in a digital entry you can delete with a swipe.
I should be honest about what actually goes on the calendar. It's not comprehensive. I don't write down everything I do or plan to do. Work deadlines go on it. Social commitments. The occasional reminder to myself — "renew library card" or "last frost date (approx)." Birthdays, though I admit I sometimes add these retroactively when I remember I forgot. The calendar is a sketch of the month, not a detailed itinerary.
What I find most valuable is the way a wall calendar presents time. A phone notification tells you about one event in isolation. It arrives, you acknowledge it, it disappears. You're living in a perpetual present tense, being pinged about things as they become imminent. A wall calendar gives you the whole month at a glance. You can see that next week is busy and the week after is empty. You can see that you committed to three things on the same Saturday and should probably do something about that. The shape of the month is visible in a way it never is on a screen.
There's also something to be said for the calendar as a record. At the end of the year, I don't throw the old one away immediately. I flip through it sometimes. It's a strange kind of diary — incomplete, mundane, but evocative. A note that says "plumber, 2pm" brings back the whole afternoon of waiting around for a plumber who showed up at four. "N's birthday, cake" reminds me of a gathering I'd otherwise have forgotten entirely. These aren't the kind of memories you'd write in a journal, but they have a texture to them that I appreciate.
I realize this might sound like nostalgia, but I don't think that's quite what it is. I'm not opposed to digital tools. I use them constantly. I'm typing this on a computer, obviously. The paper calendar isn't a rejection of technology; it's more like a recognition that different tools give you different relationships with information. A digital calendar is better at reminding you that something is about to happen. A paper calendar is better at showing you where you are in time — what's behind you, what's ahead, how the weeks are filling up or staying open.
The stationery shop where I buy the calendar is one of those places that feels like it shouldn't still exist. A small storefront between a barber and a sandwich shop, run by a woman named Diane who I think has been there since the eighties. The selection isn't large. Pens, notebooks, envelopes, a rack of greeting cards, and a modest shelf of planners and calendars that appears in November and shrinks through January. I could order the same calendar online for probably a dollar less, but I like the excuse to go in there. I usually end up buying a pen I don't need.
The calendar I'm looking at right now has a dentist appointment next Tuesday, a note about a community board meeting I'm not sure I'll attend, and a small "x" on last Thursday that I can't remember the significance of. This is, I think, about right. It's not a system. It's barely even a habit. It's just a piece of paper on the wall that helps me feel like time is passing at a pace I can follow, rather than rushing by in a series of notifications.
I'll buy another one in December. Same brand, same shop, same spot on the wall. There's a comfort in that kind of small continuity.
— K. Vadala