Whether a marginal note, comment, reference, or illumination, books I have read multiple times will be adorned. I know. I hear the muffled voices, “You do NOT write in books. Just does NOT happen.” I must admit that many of the books in my library have been adorned with marginalia.

These notes are questions I capture as I read. To be answered later or serve as rhetorical questions requiring contemplation of the passage. They are links to other passages, definitions, or exemplars. There are multiple entries along the margins. Reading a book at different times will evoke similar or different comments. The passage evolves into an annotated and personally curated artifact. It links ideas in a continuum. Alternatively, it adds a deeper and more interconnected journal of my reaction to a specific passage.

Several books in my library are embellished with that and much more. Some have note cards, newspaper clippings and pieces of paper between a page here and there. My own PKM, I guess.

None of these personally illuminated texts find their place anywhere except my library. Their use, relevance and even meaning elude some. It is a glimpse into how I read a book. You start to see my thought processes, my responses to the passages and get a glimpse into me. You comprehend my marginalia. Or you dismiss it all as doodles on the page.

All that being said, it’s like life. We each have an annotation in our lives. Sometimes, it exists and is preserved in a photograph. Sometimes, by letters we send and those we get. It all makes sense to you. But to others, it just doesn’t click.