Keep a Notebook

"The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself." - Joan Didion's On Keeping a Notebook

I continue to teach Joan Didion's short essay, "On Keeping a Notebook," in writing classes because I myself return to it. We writers find ourselves scribbling down notes - observations, images, thoughts - because we must. There's something we want to understand or remember for later. Sometimes we remember the context, sometimes we don't even remember the moment. But the process of writing something down is dear to us. 

Didion describes us: "Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss."  Do we write what we want to remember, save for later, or relive? We don't necessarily write what happened; this kind of notebook isn't a diary. There could be a color or a sentiment we want to remember and, perhaps, write into another context.

My son is two years old and scribbling with whatever he can find: my pen over the grocery list from the perch of the shopping cart or a crayon on mail or that (damn!) toy's tail that leaves marks on the wall. What is he thinking? Does he want to simply fill in the space or is he preserving ideas? (According to the pediatrician, he's strengthening his small hand muscles.)

I bought him a small wire bound notebook. He's filled most of the pages or, at least, the pages he hasn't torn out. I keep it in my purse to fill the time or save my own pen and notebook when I'm trying to write.

I wonder what he'll write once he learns to write the alphabet, then words and then organizes the words into sentences and paragraphs.

Read Didion's full essay here.