Starting a Commonplace book
And the advice I keep in it
Image credit: Kim Anderson
It took reading a book called The Commonplace Book to inspire me to start my own. Choosing a notebook for it was a trick. Like all stationery enthusiasts, I wondered if this was a good opportunity to buy something new, something special. No - there is something wonderfully ordinary about a commonplace book, something to keep with me to record oddments - an existing notebook would do.
I chose my Singlish notebook, a journal my Singaporean cousins had gifted me that had Singlish (Singaporean English) phrases printed finely at the bottom of each page. Something like a.la.mak [ah-lah-mak] - A Malay term used as a mild exclamation that expresses annoyance, exasperation, dismay or frustration. Similar to for goodness sake!, oh dear!, oh no!… Example: “Alamak! I left my keys in the office, cannot get home already…”
Or kay.poh [kaye-poh] - A Hokkien term used to describe a busybody. One who meddles in others’ affairs. Also used as a verb; nosy, prying. Example: “Eh, don’t kaypoh lah. People kena car accident also you want to look…”
I didn’t know what to do with this particular notebook but turning it into a commonplace book where I could read Singalish vocab alongside quotes and bits of advice I wanted to remember seemed fitting.
I sat down to read my commonplace notebook this evening because I wanted to write about it. Although I said that I would keep the notebook with me, that hasn’t been the case for months and I’d almost forgotten where I’d left it. Thankfully a more organised past Kim had kept it within sight on a big stack of scrap paper, sitting underneath some discarded prints and a Venetian cat mask I’d made for a fancy dress party. I may never get rid of this mask. I remember the extreme satisfaction I felt when it was finished - a cheap dollar store mask transformed into a passable Venetian one, modelled on the small papier-mâché mask I’d bought in Venice aged 21. It’s burnished in gold acrylic paint and I’m still really proud of it. When I look at it, I’m reminded that I can make beautiful things, that if I apply paint or pencil to paper, that I can create something wonderful. And it doesn’t have to make me money or give me more followers online. Maybe it too can be a silly cat mask that I’ve kept for over a decade just because it brings me joy.
Sometimes I seem to think that my brain is a camera, that it can take and record snapshots like a polaroid. I’ll think to myself, ‘Remember this, this is important, don’t forget.’ It all falls away eventually, making room for new information and concerns. That’s why I’m glad to have my commonplace book, although I haven’t touched it in months. Reading through it, I’m reminded of the headspace I was in when I noted this quote down, or that turn of phrase. ‘Remember this, this is important, don’t forget.’
Here are some of my favourite entries:
On the benefits of keeping a commonplace book:
When I find myself too earnest, too impatient, too much, I can be in conversation with other minds instead. Keeping a commonplace book feels like a kinder way to grow, by wrestling with the articulations of others in the open as I adjust myself, within.
- Charley Locke in the New York Times
On never giving up as a creative:
He was sustained, without knowing it, by the French refusal to accept poverty as a sign of failure as an artist.
- Mavis Gallant
I have forced myself to keep writing when I have been utterly exhausted, when I have felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing has seemed worth enduring for another five minutes… and somehow the activity of writing changes everything.
- Joyce Carol Oates
On the importance of imagination:
The more reality presses against us, Stevens said, the more the imagination is compelled to press back.
- Mark Doty on Wallace Stevens
A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful implanted in the human soul.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
- Ray Bradbury
On being yourself:
Learn to limit yourself, to content yourself with some definite thing and some definite work; dare to be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all you are not, and to believe in your own individuality.
- Henri Frederic Amiel
And finally, what sounds like a lovely life:
I want to be all that I am capable of becoming… I want to so live that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of this, the expression of this, I want to be writing.
- Katherine Mansfield
This has been a bit of a rambling, loosely edited post. I hope it brings you a smile or a moment of peace today. Until next time x
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