Uncommon Words for a Sister’s Heavy Heart

by PAIGE on JUNE 19, 2009

A 17th Century Commonplace Book

ONE OF MY SISTER-FRIENDS is going through a rough, tough time. Wisely, I think, she’s remembered to put out the call to her sisters both real (lucky girl, she has two of them) and virtual for support. I was particularly struck by a brilliant request she made a couple of weeks ago. What did she ask for to get her through? You’ll never guess.

She’d started keeping a journal, on the advice of several, and it was helping. But she wanted more than her own words. She asked us to send her the words of others that had meant something to us, inspired us, helped us process through our own dark storms. My sweet friend asked us for poetry.

What she is creating to carry her through hard times is a centuries-old tradition, the commonplace book. Commonplacing is “the practice of entering literary excerpts and personal comments into a private journal...

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