An ode to the Notes app
Also featuring why Coachella is dead, heartbreak hotels and syncing up (ifykyk).
Flipping through someone’s notes on their phone is the most intimate and intrusive thing you can do. To commit this act would feel illicit in much the same way that reading someone’s diary would because reading someone’s notes gives you unparalleled insight into their behind-the-scenes. From their payday wishlists, ambitious life goals, post-meeting considerations and ratings of people they have slept with, there lies bare the phone owner’s most unfiltered thoughts. As well as the measurements for a coffee table they might buy.
Even though most of these notes might be based on the day’s mundanities, there is an inherent vulnerability in their creation, as the writer likely types up each entry with the assumption that neither anyone else nor themselves will ever read these thoughts again. I’m nosey, so I’d love to read all my friends' Notes and unearth what they are really thinking half the time, but I doubt many of them would let me do that (and rightly so). So this week, I decided to look through all of mine. And it turns out that between dropping my phone down the loo in January 2019 and losing all of its contents - obviously I hadn’t backed anything up - and now, I have written 922 notes on my phone. Well, I have kept 922, as I’m sure I’ve deleted a few embarrassing and random ones along the way.
Although I only go on Notes for two minutes a day (according to the unwelcome weekly screen time report that none of us asked for), which is nothing on my fifty minutes on Instagram or my hour and ten on WhatsApp, I’ve decided Notes is my favourite app. Why? In a similar way to looking through my camera roll, scrolling through my Notes reminds me of how I have evolved over these last five transformative years. Yet, unlike the horrific tones of ash blonde and many fashion faux pas that my phone camera captured, the Notes app has stored all the random snapshots of my brain, such as the misery I was feeling on 12th December 2019 at 11:32, to what I was going to have for dinner on 29th September 2021 at 18.09 and my holiday itinerary for Lisbon on 19th April 2023 at 14:48. The result? A digital diary filled with unfiltered honesty, serving as documentation of what I’ve been up to, where I’ve been, who I fancied, why I was feeling a certain way, and much more.
For example, within my 922 notes, I have shopping lists, draft thank-you notes, pitches for newspapers, holiday itineraries, interview questions, ideas for documentaries and TV recommendations from friends. I also have several random notes that only feature two or three words and make no sense whatsoever. I’m convinced that I must have rolled over in my sleep and unconsciously “slept-texted” them to myself. I mean, surely that is a thing nowadays? Otherwise, how else could the following have come about:
5th March 2022 at 16:12 Flagship lucky stripper
7th December 2022 at 7:10 Hyeprki
14th June 2023 at 11:00 Hanos
23rd November 2023 at 9:06 Walk to Hove
There are also many notes containing reminders that I know I never looked at but wish I had, such as:
5th June 2020 at 21:33 Do not forget to shave legs and pits and charge portable charger
25th June 2022 at 07:29 Get on the Peachy Den sale!!!
10th May 2023 at 14.33 From the [Ben Nevis] summit, go 150 metres at a bearing of 231 degrees. You'll pass Gardyloo Gully (to your right). If you then follow a bearing of 282 degrees, you'll start on the zigzags down the Mountain Path.
6th February 2024 at 16:53 Don’t take skin care tips off Tiktok
But some of my favourite notes include advice from peers, inspirational content I read or heard and lists of family and friends silly quotes that take me back to moments of pure joy on a bad day:
20th April 2020 at 13:42 Why would you want to peak in your twenties when you might have fifty-plus years to live?
8th September 2022 at 23:12 Grief is the price we pay for love (RIP Queen Liz).
6th January 2023 at 19:18 Be the change you want to see in the world. Whether that be big or small, it’s about time we all started standing up a bit more for what we believe in.
21st February 2023 at 17:16 No one has to live a day in your shoes. They might live some of the moments, but not the days, weeks, months and years of pain, suffering and dissatisfaction if you chose the life society wants you to choose but you don’t want to - words of wisdom from the King himself, Jay Shetty on the Deliciously Ella podcast (I’m pretty sure I’ve sent this to every one of my friends and family with the subject: “This podcast will change your life.”)
However, the notes I have found most fascinating to look back on are the ones where I have documented my thoughts on what was going on in the world at that moment in time or how I was feeling that day:
24th June 2020 at 23:24 Grief is the most universal feeling in the world but the least talked about.
15th November 2020 at 02:22 I thought it would all get better after we could finally go out and meet with friends and family again but I still feel numb. I feel like if I told people this was how I felt it wouldn’t make any sense. We live and breathe emotions and feelings every day and I’ve always been thought of as someone who is very in touch with my and others' emotions, which I am, but why do I still feel so numb inside?
18th April 2022 at 14:59 I finally feel pure happiness again for the first time since October 2019. This morning I was cycling my bike through the canals blasting “Hey Africa,” a song that we all love out here [Amsterdam] and I had that eureka feeling. I feel like it’s sort of impossible to explain. but that tingling, can’t wipe the smile off your face, you’re so full of joy and could conquer the world kind of feeling. I felt it for the first time in yonks. Yay!
3rd January 2023 at 08:26 There are thousands of footprints on the sand of Calais’ beaches - how many of these are from last night when the refugees were running from the police towards the water hoping to get on a boat?
30th May 2023 at 22:59 I’ve just watched Ed Sheeran’s documentary, The Sum of It All, and here are my key takeaways: Have the conversations with people you want to before you can’t. Go on that trip you have always dreamed of before you can’t. Chase that career you’ve always wanted before you can’t. Fall in love with that person before you can’t. Tell your family how much they mean to you before you can’t and find out all about your parents' history before you can’t. Life is shorter than you think, so just do it.
Rereading my Notes has been a bit like confronting my annual Spotify Wrapped results: a bit toe-curling, rather funny but undoubtedly a brilliant trip down memory lane. It has also filled me with a sense of gratitude for where I’ve been, what I’ve achieved and where I am now. So next time you find yourself with some time to kill - perhaps while on your commute with no wifi, on your lunch break or during a cosy night in - I highly recommend you look back through your Notes (or Android equivalent). Maybe you will be reminded of a funny moment you shared with a friend or a delicious recipe your colleague suggested. After all, to be reminded was why you wrote it down in the first place.
Conversation Starters
Is Coachella dead? - When I was fifteen, I dreamt of going to Coachella and partying with the likes of Kendall Jenner, Rihanna and Vanessa Hudgens while wearing my flower power headband and boho kaftan. Now, I couldn’t think of anything worse. And it seems many others concur. What was once the hottest ticket in the summer festival calendar has struggled to sell its tickets this year, with the Los Angeles Times reporting that Coachella has faced its slowest sales year in a decade. The former ‘It Girl’ festival has now become the ‘Influencer Olympics,’ according to Tiktok star Loren Gray, as influencers flock to the desert to make sure everyone on their socials knows they’re there and we ain’t. But apparently, lots of these influencers don’t even go to the festival. In a Tiktok video, Gray said: “They’ll go to the desert, get like an Air BnB and stay with someone, get their outfits, get their hair, get their makeup, and post up Coachella day one, Coachella day two, and they don’t go to the festival.” Imagine going to all that effort just for a pic? *insert me putting my head in my hands* And if it wasn’t just the influencers making it bad enough, the music has gone downhill too. On X, Grimes apologised for the “worst performance in the history of Coachella” and Blur’s frontman, Damon Albarn, kicked off at the crowd for not knowing their songs, telling Coachella attendees, “You’ll never see us again.” Even the fashion, once a vibrant expression of Coachella's bohemian spirit, has taken a downward turn. Instead of flowing kaftans and flower crowns, celebs are repping tracksuits and baseball tops, giving off the “I didn’t even try” look (although obviously they did). Coachella, once my American dream, now seems more like a waking nightmare.
When you know something is illegal, does it make you want to do it more?- In light of the smoking ban that MPs have backed, AKA a plan to ban anyone born after 2009 from buying cigarettes, I’ve been thinking a lot about the peculiar effect of prohibition. When we’re told “don’t,” for many of us, something inside us nudges us towards “do.” Using a fake ID to get into a nightclub? Nothing beats that thrill. Eating something from the bakery aisle whilst walking around the supermarket? I’ve seen it happen. Many children buy booze before they're 18 and plenty of the population has experimented with illegal substances. I don’t know if it's the excitement or the hint of danger, but there is an undeniable allure to the forbidden. With this in mind, I reckon the MPs' plan to ban the 09ers and below from smoking will only backfire: banning smoking won’t stop Gen Alpha from doing it, it will only make it cooler. Surely nothing will earn you more approval among your classmates if you’ve managed to sneak in a few of your older brother’s Marlboro Golds to smoke behind the school shed. It did in my day, so I don’t see why it won’t in the future.
Lorna’s love and loathe of the week
Love
Heartbreak hotels - In my eyes, heartbreak is a form of grief. For many, breaking up with someone or being broken up with can emulate the emotions you feel when someone passes away because you have lost someone significant in your life that you might never see again. Heartbreak is something most of us will go through at least once in our lives, yet one can often feel alone in one’s suffering and it’s hard to know where to seek help. A broken leg? Go to hospital. A broken heart? Your friends will comfort you for a day or two and then they’ll likely tell you to get back out there as “you’ve got to get under to get over.” But don’t worry, I have a solution (albeit a rather expensive one…). Enter - heartbreak hotels, the retreats that are all about transforming heartbreak into hope and enabling you to reclaim your power. I mean nowadays you go to a retreat to cleanse your body, connect with nature and improve your sex life, so why wouldn’t you stay at one to heal your heart? This might all sound a bit Eat, Pray, Love but you don’t even have to travel around the world, with the OG heartbreak hotel, The Heartbreak Hotel, based in the rolling hills of Derbyshire. During your stay, you’ll receive counselling, plenty of nourishing food, go on guided walks and practice yoga. For those sceptical about the investment or unsure about taking the time off work, the founders, psychologist Alice Harden and life coach Ruth Field, have written a book based on the retreat Finding Your Self at the Heartbreak Hotel, which boasts many five-star reviews. If you're feeling heartbroken and a little lost, this might just be the way to reharness your inner power and I’m all here for it.
Loathe
Girls syncing up on their periods - Is it bizarre that when one of my friends tells me they are on their period, I automatically move at least an arm’s length away from them, a bit like we all did when someone said they had Covid? It’s not because I think that periods are a form of witchery (like some), but because of my fear that we will start syncing up. No matter what contraception I go on, I seem to catch my period off my friends like a child catches a cold at school—regularly - despite my doctor promising I won’t break through. Yet, ironically, the regularity appears to underscore the irregularity of my own menstrual cycle. With random syncing up comes unexpected mental breakdowns, excruciating pain, unforseen leaks through white trousers and trips to the bathroom become a strategic operation rather than a leisurely ten-minute escape from work. Although there might be no scientific evidence to suggest this “syncing up” effect is true, with many putting it down to chance, if you ask most women about this mysterious effect I’m sure they can recount a time when they hung out with a friend who was on their period for the day or had a sleepover, and then the next morning they started their period too. Last summer, the Matildas’ (the Australian women’s national football team) physician, Dr Brandi Colea told the media that the girls all sync up when they are training at camp and sometimes all the players are on their period during a match… I can barely walk to the Sainsbury’s at the end of the road without my hot waterbottle when I’m on my period, so how on earth do they run around for 90 minutes +. Massive respect. Anyway, dear friend, next time we are going to hang out and you’re on your period, please let me know. I will still come and see you, but I might be in a hazmat suit, face mask and goggles and we will have to stand at least a few metres apart as I really don’t have time to have to be on my period for the next week. Thank you.
That’s all for now. I hope next time you strike up a conversation with someone, it won't have to be “The weather really has been awful lately hasn’t it?”, “Any fun plans this evening?” or even worse… “How was your commute today?”
Love LP xx
P.S. Please follow me on Instagram @rawtalkwithlornaperry