X is for the X in the Margins—Those Bookish Breadcrumbs

Okay, I’ll admit I’m fudging a little by claiming I put X’s in the margins next to passages in books that speak to me. I’m more of a highlighter‑underliner and occasional‑pencil‑circler. But X is a stingy letter in the A to Z Challenge, so here we are. And apologies to longtime readers if you recognize a few of these quotes. I warned you on Day One that I’m old and starting to repeat myself both on and offline.

The first passage I can remember metaphorically put an X beside comes from John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Decades ago I would have said he was my favorite author, though I eventually outgrew him. Still, I’ve kept my battered copy for one circled paragraph. It appears halfway through the book, when three characters debate how a single translated word in Genesis shaped entire branches of religious thought. The Hebrew timshel — “thou mayest” — struck me hard when I first read it. I was in a state of flux about religion back then—even after taking several classes on world religions both at a secular and a Catholic colleges—and the idea that we are given a choice, not a commandment depending on that translation, fit perfectly with an issue I’d been wrestling with.

My second quote to share is from Dean Koontz’s Seize the Night. I’ve always been overly sentimental about objects, and this passage explains why: “…we remember best those that are linked to places and things; memory embeds in the form and weight and texture of real objects…” In other words, it’s not the value of objects that keeps us attached, they are anchors helping us hold on to our memories. I’ve often wished I could play that on a loop whenever someone dismisses sentimentality. Being sentimental turned the Hall family (of Hallmark fame) into billionaires, so clearly I’m not alone.

Next is a quote from Stephen King’s Different Seasons, a book with many invisible X’s in the margins. I’m not a huge fan of his scare‑you fiction, but I adore his nonfiction. (Give me his writing advice and his reflections on childhood and keep the clowns and haunted hotels.) This line has stayed with me for years: “The most important things are the hardest to say… words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head.” If you’ve ever tried to explain something tender and been met with a blank stare, you know exactly what he means.

King’s book On Writing is practically a forest of metaphorical X’s. Another one of my favorites: “Come to the act of writing any way but lightly… you must not come lightly to the blank page.” I’ve carried that with me through every blog post, every essay, every attempt to tell the truth without flinching. He's also been influential in helping me develop a style of writing where I hold nothing back.

Moving on. Somewhere along the way someone told me my writing style was like Erma Bombeck’s, which sent me on a mission to read everything she ever wrote. Her self‑defeating humor and sharp observations nudged me deeper into my slice‑of‑life memoir style writing, while King reminded me to be honest — even when it’s uncomfortable. Over the years I’ve exposed all my foibles and quirks, the good, the bad and the ugly, because Bombeck was right: “There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.”

“If I’ve done my job as a blogger, somewhere in this long, April trail of posts there’s a line you’ve marked in your own mind—a little mental X beside something that made you laugh or cry or feel less alone. I can only hope. ©