the creative notebook: school supplies, fall nostalgia, and a list of experiences

I admit it: I miss the small town school supply shopping experience of my youth. And I'll also admit: it's not fall yet, friends. We have until September 21. Stop rushing me.

Sep 19, 2025

visiting Albium’s vaulted cabin in their olive groves: one of many plein air locations I plan to take artists and writers this fall.

Back to school season, which has just happened this week in Spain, always gets me thinking again about those back to school shopping trips when I was a kid. I don’t remember the clothing shopping trips, but I do specifically remember the yearly trek to Lee’s General Store, just off the town square next to the Hallmark store, to pick out our class supplies. Lee’s had a selection of office and school supplies year round, more towards the back, but at the end of summer, they cleared out a whole aisle and a half right up front to make room for all the crayons, pens, markers, erasers, safety scissors and of course: Trapper Keepers. I loved that yearly visit for school supplies. I’d circle that aisle over and over, making sure I knew all my options before making my selections. I’d rummage through the folders to reach the back, making sure there wasn’t another color behind the rest that I didn’t know was available. I’d figure out a color theme for my supplies, so my scissors didn’t clash with my folder which didn’t clash with my 3 ring binder. Yes, I had a 3 ring binder, not a Trapper Keeper. Trapper Keepers were too expensive and, to be honest, a little too garish for my tastes, even as a child. Or maybe that was a defense mechanism, like the fox who couldn’t reach the grapes saying he didn’t really want them anyway. Trapper Keepers, as I remember them, were neon, or animal print, or something super bright and flashy. And I wanted something a little more “mature.” And so I’d pick out a baby blue 3 ring binder, and blue or white eraser, a pencil case with blue in it, and everything would match. Everything had to coordinate, because I was creating a mood, you see. A look. A statement about me, my personality, my style. As a kid whose clothes were nearly all hand-me-downs from my cousin Trish or found at garage sales, my clothes definitely weren’t making a personal statement–so it was important that something I was going back to school with felt like me, I suppose.

I still select my office and art and journaling supplies in the same considered, check out all the options and make a coordinated plan, kind of way.

Of course now, Lee’s General Store is gone, and there is this cheesy gift store in its place, with flowy lettering on faux worn wood and other “shabby chic” decorating bits long after shabby chic has gone out of style in the rest of the country. Bless small town Iowa, she’s always at least a few years behind. Lee’s went out of business after Wal-Mart showed up on the outskirts of town. I hesitate to believe that back-to-school shopping in the back of a big box Wal-Mart could be as magical as my childhood experiences in Lee’s. I am grateful that I grew up in a small town before Wal-Mart took over the United States. Still, in my 50s, every year, I would do my back-to-school supplies shopping. I would pick up a multi-pack of glue sticks (or three), some post-its in fun colors, a dozen of my favorite pens, and peruse all the notebooks and rulers and organizers and well… everything, honestly. I still went round and round the options to make sure I’m selecting exactly what I want. And, yes, I would also still look on in horror at the Trapper Keeper designs that, for reasons I cannot fathom, are still garish and still popular. They’ve even “gone retro” (i.e. copied the designs of my childhood) and then moved on again, which tells me that I am much, much too old to be back-to-school shopping every fall. Definitely too old to be looking forward to that special trip each August. But there it is: a magical trip, buying precious items that others just think of as basic necessities without much thought put into them, every year the kick-off to my fresh-start fall feeling, as everything gets back up to full speed and our days of applying sunscreen and bug spray, packing a book to read, and adding extra ice to our water bottles dwindle.

my daughter, off on her first day of school last week.

Of course now, in Spain, I am still learning where to go for my school supplies shopping. I’ve wandered through papelerias and librerías in plenty of locations, but haven’t yet found my perfect spot. I have learned, though, that glue sticks don’t come in big savings packs at back to school. The whole “buy in bulk to save money” thing? Not so common here. I have discovered some favorite brands, like Milan for notebooks and pencil sharpeners, so we’re getting there.

But I’m still nostalgic for that old general store of my youth back in Pella, Iowa.

I get nostalgic and wistful at the transitions of every season, it’s true, but fall is definitely the strongest season. Fall still has that “fresh pencils and notebooks” kick-off feeling. And so, with that in mind, I thought it’d be a good chance for us to kick off a little fall preparation, now that it’s nearly the official start of fall. I know what you’re going to say. But to me, it’s still summer until September 21, and you will not convince me otherwise! I kind of think of the period between the start of the school year and that official date as our “transition period,” where we are ending summer while also preparing for fall.

So with that, let’s prepare:

Your writing prompt:

This week’s writing prompt is two-fold. First: tell me about your own memories of getting ready to go back to school. Maybe you were excited, like me, about getting new school supplies, or maybe you weren’t my brand of nerd but still some kind of nerd, so you also had some anxiety about how other kids were going to treat you during recess again.

Second: let’s shift from looking back to looking forward. What do you want to do this fall? I am not talking about what you want to accomplish at work, or what you need to get done, or what you hope to complete. Oh, no. We are not making a to-do list here. We are making an experiences list. As Elizabeth says, “schedule the fun first.” So make your checklist. Do you want to pick apples and make apple butter? Make a big batch of chai? Rake leaves with a child so they can jump in them? Go to your favorite park or national forest to take in the colors of the changing leaves? Make a list: at least ten experiences, ten beautiful moments, that you want to make time for this fall. Yes, that’s until December 21. Then rip a blank page out of your journal, re-write that list, and post it to your fridge. You’re going to want to check things off as you do them, so put it where you’ll see it often.

Visual play: gather up your favorite school supplies: pens and pencils, washi tapes, post-its, and so on. Think mark-making and paper bits. Do a bit of using each of them on a journal page: what do those pens write like? Do swatches of all your marker or highlighter colors. We’re not going shopping, we’re just doing an inventory, drawing ourselves back into the tactile and visual qualities of what we already have around us. Be sure to label everything: what is the name of the color? What is the brand? The pen width measurement? Do you notice you like thick lines or thin lines? Does your inventory stay very ordered along the page, or do you find yourself wandering and playing and winding around instead? Inventories don’t have to be boring, after all.

Enjoy your materials!