There are many ways to remember a place.

You can take photographs. Buy the postcard. Bring home the sticker. Write down where you went and what you saw.

Or you can begin to collect the place while you are still inside it.

That’s what I found myself doing in Yellowstone.

I arrived with a battered old book I’d turned into a travel journal, a tiny watercolor palette, a little notebook for field notes, a vintage tobacco tin, a pen, and a canvas bag that said:

I notice because I make.
I make because I notice.

Which, it turns out, was exactly the right equipment.

Not because I intended to make beautiful pages while sitting beside geysers.

I didn’t.

I wanted something much simpler.

I wanted to pay attention.

For a long time, I’ve been interested in noticing.

The small things. The ordinary things. The things we walk past every day because we think we already know them.

The light moving across the kitchen table. A sentence overheard in a coffee shop. The particular blue of the evening sky. A grocery list tucked into a pocket. A flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk. The way someone you love always tells the same story.

I’ve written often about paying attention to these things.

But lately, I’ve become interested in what happens next.

What do we do with what we notice?

I’ve been thinking about noticing.

Which, admittedly, is not exactly new around here.

But lately I’ve been wondering what makes noticing an art.

We tend to think it begins with looking more closely. Paying better attention. Training ourselves to spot the beautiful thing everyone else walked past.

I’m not sure it does.

I think it begins much closer to home.

With our own little corners of the world.

I am forever picking things up.

A leaf on a walk. A scrap of paper from a café. A ticket stub. A particularly good postage stamp. A label from something I ate in France. A feather. A receipt.

Sometimes I know exactly why I want to keep something.

Often, I don't.

It just catches my attention, and before I've had time to make a reasonable decision about whether I need another tiny piece of paper in my life, I've slipped it into my pocket.

Lately, I’ve been putting things aside.

An acorn.

A scrap of paper with an interesting edge.

A postcard I brought home from France.

A phrase scribbled on the back of something because apparently the notebook sitting three inches away was too far to reach.

A tiny envelope.

A feather.

Nothing terribly important.

And yet, for some reason, not quite throw-away-able either.

This is not particularly unusual for me. I have always been a collector of ordinary things. My pockets have carried home stones and shells and seed pods. My suitcases return from trips considerably heavier with paper. I have drawers containing bits and pieces that would cause another person to ask, quite reasonably, Why are you keeping this?

I don't always know.

I just know when something feels worth keeping.

This morning, I’m sitting on the back deck beneath the pergola, listening to rain tap and splash against the roof overhead.

It’s still summer.

Technically.

But something has changed.

Maybe it’s the rain. Maybe it’s the cooler air slipping around the edges of the morning. Maybe it’s simply September, arriving with its sharpened pencils and fresh notebooks and ancient promise that we might begin again.

Whatever it is, I can feel the season beginning to turn.

There was a time when I thought art began in the studio.

At the painting table.

With fresh paper, clean brushes, and an idea waiting to become something beautiful.

I don't believe that anymore.

I think art begins much earlier than that.

It begins the moment we notice.

This morning, I noticed the light.

Nothing spectacular was happening. It was simply morning light falling across our living room floor in that particular way it sometimes does—the kind that makes you stop for half a second and think, Oh.

And that could have been the end of it.

Most of our days are filled with moments like this.

Every now and then someone says to me,

"Your journals are so full. Mine would never look like that."

I understand what they mean.

They're imagining that I must be traveling somewhere beautiful, wandering antique markets every weekend, or living a life filled with endless inspiration.

The truth is much quieter.

Most of what fills my journals happens on ordinary Tuesdays.

Several days after I wrote about becoming the collector of your own life, I found myself paying even closer attention.

Not because I was trying harder.
Simply because I had asked myself a different question.

Not, What do I need to accomplish today?

But...
What might be worth keeping?

It changed the way I moved through the day.

A few weeks ago, someone asked me what "everyday noticing" really means.

I could have talked about mindfulness or creativity. I could have described keeping journals or making art from found papers. But the answer that kept returning to me was much simpler than that.

It's about becoming the collector of your own life.

Not a collector of expensive things or extraordinary experiences, but of ordinary moments that might otherwise disappear.

Because our days are constantly offering us something worth keeping.

Travel With Me: Spring 2027 Art Vacation in Switzerland

I'll be returning to a place that changed the way I travel.

One that offers quiet lakes, mountain light, graceful train journeys, and the kind of stillness that allows you to hear yourself think again.

I'm inviting a small group of fellow creatives to join me—not simply for an art workshop, but for a different way of experiencing travel.

Imagine opening a notebook that belonged to someone two hundred years ago.

Inside you find a pressed violet. A recipe copied from a neighbor. A favorite poem written carefully in ink. A sketch of a bird seen on an afternoon walk. A shopping list tucked beside a letter. A newspaper clipping. A watercolor swatch. A quotation that once stopped someone in their tracks.

It isn't quite a diary.

It isn't a scrapbook.

It isn't a sketchbook.

It's something delightfully difficult to define—and perhaps that's exactly why it has endured for centuries.

A commonplace book is simply a place to gather what you don't want to forget.

If you've ever thought your life wasn't interesting enough to fill a journal, may I offer another possibility?

Maybe you've simply been measuring your days by the things that don't quite capture their fullness.

What if your life isn't waiting for extraordinary moments to become worth recording?

What if it already is?

When I was younger, I thought the best souvenirs were the ones I could tuck into my suitcase.

A hand-painted ceramic bowl from Italy.
A stack of vintage postcards from a Paris flea market.
A linen tea towel from a tiny shop whose name I've long since forgotten.

I still treasure those things. They remind me where I've been and, for a moment, transport me back to another place and time.

But over the years, I've realized the best souvenir I ever bring home isn't something I can hold in my hands.

It's the way travel changes how I see.

Art journaling isn't just about creating beautiful pages. It's about learning to pay attention. Discover how creativity can transform the way you experience ordinary life, beauty, memory, and wonder.

Some places leave an imprint on the heart.

Lake Como was one of them.

This week, I'm sharing the story of a creative journey through one of Italy's most beautiful corners—a week of ferry rides and flower-filled gardens, travel journals and Aperol Spritzes, ravioli-making and lakeside conversations.

Yet what stays with me most isn't the scenery, beautiful as it was.

It's the reminder that a meaningful life is built from moments we choose to notice.

I hope you'll pull up a chair, pour yourself something lovely, and come along with me to Lake Como.

You don’t notice it right away—the shift.
It happens somewhere between one page and the next… between showing up and staying.

This is where art journaling deepens. Not into better pages, but into a different relationship with yourself—one built on presence, trust, and the quiet courage to remain.

There are moments in life when something shifts—quietly, almost imperceptibly. If you’ve been wondering where you are or what comes next, this gentle guide will help you recognize your current season and meet yourself there with clarity and compassion.