~a column by Colleen O’Brien
I receive many texts and emails that have to do with ageing.
Sometimes I read them.
It is apparent the advertising world has my number; they know more about me than I do. The volume of cajoling hints on daily exercise, ordering wonder drugs, practicing gratitude and seeking help from Dr. Oz-like ageing men is astonishing.
My first instinct is to delete, but often enough I am aged enough to think perhaps there is help-for-sale online.
My advice? Don’t go there.
Instead, go to Marginalian, a web spot that can come to your email, or you can sign up on Substack. It will immediately reveal itself as a “one-woman labor of love.”
When I first came upon that particular phrase, it appealed to me, old feminist that I claim to be, so I read on. Webmaster of Marginalian is Maria Popova who since 2006 has been searching for meaning from science, philosophy, poetry, art, ancient history and children’s books…and sharing what she learns and likes.
Her ongoing publication of six million words so far is housed in the permanent archive of the Library of Congress. [With the interfering, backward-looking administration we’re currently stuck with, who knows if it’s still in that famous repository which probably will be raided soon by philistines who are totally lacking in cultural values.]
The word marginalia is right up my alley, because I am a marginalian – I write in margins. With pen, I correct errors in newspapers and ads; with pencil, I make notes in books. If I own the book, I add with magic markers my thoughts and questions in the margins; I also draw flowers and trees and the occasional serious duck.
I am overjoyed when I come across an old book that has marginalia in it. Or scholium [another word for margin notes by unknown readers that explain, question and correct grammar or fact or spelling]. They give a peek into other readers’ mysterious lives. They add fillip to even the most boring book; in fact, it is often the most boring books that invite scholium or marginalia, as in, “Doesn’t this author know how to spell? Think? Explain? Intrigue?”
Popova writes periodically about the acceptance of marginalia as an old and often obsessive habit among authors. She brings up Edgar Allen Poe, who wrote what became famous essays about “scribbling in the margins.” He defined it as “freshly, boldly, originally” ourselves.
Popova often mentions another marginalian, 19th-century English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. She writes of him as the godfather of English marginalia, having written thousands of notes in books he owned or borrowed.
And to my liking, Popova talks about the diaries of two of my favorites – writer Virginia Woolf and poet Sylvia Plath – to explain how both women wrote private notes in their reading that influenced the essence of their published novels, essays and poems.
Tying the website The Marginalian into my loathing of ads about ageing, I hope you will ignore the pushing of age-related products that don’t work. Follow marginalian Popova, who is endlessly interesting in what she chooses to explore. She moves me to feel more with-it without mentioning age.
Popova covers compelling topics such as competitive athletics as “a culture that prizes productivity above presence.” When I read that one, I was struck suddenly by the realization of why my beloved college-basketball-playing grandson dropped the sport and returned to real life.
She writes about how to see a bird; of Robert Lewis Stevenson on falling in love; of the ancient plant that inspired the heart symbol; Terry Tempest Williams writing about despair; how the bicycle was born; how Mary Shelley, so bored during bad weather that she sat down and came up with an interesting story: “Frankenstein.” The bad-weather part of this particular Popova essay is more surprising than the monster tale.
And, not surprising, her platform is full of marginalia in the form of poems, old art, modern art, song lyrics, photography. Try it. You’ll like it. [This phrase to recommend Marginalian is neither the Alka Seltzer ad nor the tune to encourage kids to try new foods; it’s a trite phrase in our language and the most apt for my subject.]
