Keeping a Commonplace Book

I’ve always loved keeping quotes and making scrapbooks. I’ve made books of quotes for myself since I was a child. It wasn’t until I dived into the works of Charlotte Mason that I learned of a name for this type of diary – a commonplace book.

A commonplace book is a central notebook where someone collects thoughts, quotes, poems, ideas, and information together from various sources. It works as a personal bank of meaning to the owner. They’ve been around since the time of antiquity but were particularly popular among scientists and philosophers during the Renaissance.

A commonplace book was kind of like a Pinterest board, but in words not images and in a book form not on the internet. These days some people choose to keep Commonplace documents on their computer. I prefer to hand write in a beautiful journal I chose for the role.

When I’m having a tough day, I enjoy reading back through my commonplace book. I always find inspiring nuggets of wisdom in there that help me refocus and change my attitude. After all, the entire book is filled with things I thought worth remembering and that spoke directly to my heart and mind.

As I prepared to write this post about my experience with my commonplace book, I had a meta moment with one quote that I copied out into my book six years ago.

“I began to realize that all my life I’ve been leaving myself breadcrumbs. It didn’t matter that I didn’t always know what I was working toward. It was worthwhile, I told myself, just trying to see clearly, even if it took me years to understand what I was trying to see.” – Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror

Breathing New Life into a Stale Homeschool Year

Now I’ve almost filled the entire notebook with passages, poems, quotes, lyrics, and mottoes that continue to inspire me. It is a book of breadcrumbs and reading through it all at once gives me almost a bird’s eye view of what I value.

It is early April. We have two months left in the school year. We are hitting the springtime doldrums where I feel like the year has gone by way too fast and we didn’t accomplish nearly enough, whilst also feeling like the year has crept along at a snail’s pace. The renovations which were supposed to be done 4 months ago are still ongoing and probably will continue for another 2 months. Every day I feel like we are interrupted, behind, and distracted. Our family habits have fallen completely apart as our household systems have been non-existent in a topsy-turvy home. I feel like we haven’t accomplished nearly enough, my kids haven’t made as much progress as I would have liked. In short, I am questioning everything, wondering where I’ve gone wrong, what I could do better, and if I should quit altogether.

And then I crack open my commonplace book and I read.

“Whatever is getting in the way of your plan for the day – the toddler’s tantrum, the messy bedroom, the sticky juice leaking all over the fridge and into the cracks of the drawers, the frustrated child, the irritable husband, the car that won’t start, the cake the dog dragged under the couch….Whatever the intrusion into your grand plan for the day, it is also an opportunity to enter into rest. C.S. Lewis once observed:

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own”, or “real” life. The truth is, of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life – the life God is sending one day by day. What one calls one’s “real life” is a phantom of one’s own imagination.” “

-Sarah McKenzie, Teaching from Rest

Good job Past-Me, writing that one down. This passage spoke to Past-Me, it speaks to Present-Me, and because it is in my commonplace book, Future-Me will always be able to find it when she inevitably gets stuck again in the educational muck of comparison and distraction.

Sometimes the things Past-Me wrote down spoke to me in a different way than they do today…yet as I read them I find them new again as my life presents different challenges.

“We have to wait for the physiological change to occur. You can’t rush it, it will happen in its own time…Imagine trying to teach a caterpillar how to fly. The poor thing might listen, take flying lessons, watch butterflies darting around. But no matter how hard it tries, it won’t fly. Maybe we get frustrated because we know this little guy has it in him to become a butterfly. So we give him books to read, try to counsel him, scold him, punish him, threaten him, maybe even toss him up into the air and watch him flap his little legs before crashing back to earth…The miracle takes time. We must be patient. But just as it is natural and normal for caterpillars to become butterflies, so we can expect addicted individuals, given the appropriate care and compassion, to be transformed in the recovery process.” – James Milan, quoted in the Only Life I Could Save by Kathryn Ketcham

A few years ago, I needed to write this down as I processed my grief around addictions…but today, as I home educate an out-of-the-box kiddo, the caterpillar analogy is even more impactful. Growth takes time and does not follow the schedule we or the school district assigns to it.

They say homeschool moms are some of the most insecure people on the planet – there are so many curriculums and options – how do we know which one is the “right” fit? Is what I’m doing good enough? I compare myself to what others are doing, what their kids are achieving – and it’s not helpful. It’s a trap.

I’m confronted with another passage I took the time to write down. Thank you Past-Me, this is exactly what I needed to read today:

“Parents may believe in principle that their child is uniquely formed, yet in practice they can succumb to society’s pressure to dictate what their child needs to know and who their child needs to be. We default to teaching our children disconnected facts rather than helping them build a personalized knowledge base tailored to their own specific personality and future pathway. In short, we study the child to help the child study. Many parents realize too late that their child does not fit the box they’ve spent years constructing for them. We can avoid this by attentively curating the atmosphere of a child’s life to help draw out who he or she already is. – Leah Boden, Modern Miss Mason

Like many homeschool moms, I am afraid that I’m not doing a good enough job. That my kids are falling behind. And in my haste to make it right and “catch up”, I forget what’s most important. Years ago my friend Lisa Lewis said,

“Fear pushes and pulls. Love leads and guides.”

I’m glad I wrote this down, because do I ever need to remember this as I teach my kids through this season. I know from experience that homeschooling goes much better when I lead and guide – not push and pull my kids to some arbitrary goal post out of fear of being “behind”.

I am reminded,

“But the world is mostly changed by people who love mightily amidst their ordinary, who remain in their stories and homes and relationships with integrity.” – Sally Clarkson’s daughter on Instagram

Choosing to show up every day in my ordinary life, loving my family, friends and community with everything I’ve got as my authentic self – that’s how I want to be remembered.

And just when I tear up flipping through this book full of inspirational content I’ve curated for myself over the years, I laugh out loud because I also wrote down:

“Meg’s high-heeled slippers were dreadfully tight, and hurt her, though she would not own it, and Jo’s nineteen hair-pins all seemed struck straight into her head, which was not exactly comfortable; but dear me, LET US BE ELEGANT OR DIE.” -Louisa May Alcott, Little Women [All Caps, Mine]

and,

“I’d like to give this place a good airing…it smells of a thousand meals” – L.M.Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

and

“Hot dog vendors so unhappy in their work that in previous lives they must have been calves, or Hindus.” – Anne Lamott, Travelling Mercies

I encourage you to start your own commonplace book and create a special gift for your future self. It’s one of the best things I do for myself.

And so, I go forward with the words of my graduate school office-mate in my ears:

“In all that I do, walk as though many people have prayed for me to be here.” – My friend, Ian MacNairn

May you as well.

Warmly,

-Heather

Enjoyed this post? Check out some of my other recent posts:

• Is 4th grade too early for Shakespeare? One family’s experience
• Encouraging Reading in Boys: Favorite Books for Young Readers
• Helping an Addict
• Warm, Cozy, Eclectic Bedroom
• The Power of Learning with Living Books and Making Connections

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