April's Post-it note art from Instagram

Over on our Instagram page, we're posting a weekly installation from Clare Johnson's Post-it Note Project, a long running daily project. Here's her wrap-up and statement from April's posts.

April's Theme: Who knows

Combing through years of daily post-it notes choosing what to publish here each month, I find days that have become a mystery, even to me. I don’t know what I was talking about. Sometimes I can investigate these mundane mysteries, unearthing clues in my journal or old day planners. Maybe now that I’ve admitted these particular memory misses, some helpful friend will see and put more pieces together. I know I was having a conversation with my friend — I know which friend — some clever crack involving what chickens dream about — but that’s not exactly it, it was more intricate, there’s something I’m missing — she made me laugh so hard — I said I’d immortalize it in my post-it that night — but now it eludes me. On the calendar, bleak magic falls when I worried my father was dying, and I was in a leg brace after a stupid, spectacular turned ankle that also somehow involved slamming into a parked van. I was trying to catch myself, but seemed to just... bounce off it instead, and fall harder. Life was dark, maybe it was about the little things carrying me through. Or my own improbable mix of small, terrible pieces of unluckiness. The tiffin tin could be recalling the last birthday gift from my ex-wife years before, or maybe it’s when I saw that movie about them and I’m not talking about my life at all. Toenails vs. teeth — who knows. I enjoy its specificity, I’m disappointed I can’t unlock the moment. The last one is too recent, makes me nervous that someone else will know what I meant and I’ll have exposed some awful vulnerability in one of my relationships. But my grandmother with the fingernails and lipstick was long dead by then, and everybody knows how she hurt my feelings.