Pick up a leaf. Write the date on an envelope, write a few sentences underneath about how you came across it, then slide the leaf inside and press the envelope in a book.
A bare leaf in a book stays a leaf. Years later it slides out of page 212 and you get a little jolt, and then nothing. You know you saved it. You don’t know why. The envelope fixes that. The date and the caption hand you back the whole afternoon: who you were walking with, what the street looked like, what else was going on that week.
Some tips for your first one:
- Carry the leaf in your hand on the way home. Don’t stick it in a pocket. Whatever is in your hands changes how you think, and a leaf in your hand makes you look at other leaves for the rest of the walk.
- Photograph the leaf where you found it, before you go. Get the tree. Get whoever you’re with.
- Write the date on the envelope BEFORE the leaf goes inside. Otherwise, your pen tip dents the leaf (although a dented leaf might be kinda cool too).
- Write the caption under the date. Two or three sentences. What was happening that day, not just where the leaf was.
- Photograph the leaf next to the finished envelope. The leaf will fade and flatten in the book. The photo keeps the original color and your handwriting together in one frame.
- Then the leaf goes in the envelope, and the envelope goes in the book.
Use 5×7 envelopes. Letter-size envelopes are the common ones around a house, but they’re often too short to hold a whole leaf and too long to sit inside a book without poking out the top.
Pick one book and make it your leaf book, so you’re not hunting the whole shelf later. Although leaves scattered randomly through your bookshelf make for a good surprise too, so maybe do some of both.
The caption is the part people skip, and it’s the part that does all the work. Write it the same day, while you still know what the weather was.
What’s already pressed in the books on your shelf, and do you remember why you put it there?
