Summary Of On Keeping A Notebook

826 Words2 Pages

Reflections on Joan Didion's “On Keeping a Notebook” by Haley Fischer When I was younger I did not have a journal. I was an only child, so I did not feel the need to hide my personal belongings. As I grew older I was diagnosed with a severe form of anxiety. I did not know how to cope with my feelings. When I was told to visit a therapist, I had mixed emotions on attending the sessions, because I did not like the idea of opening up to a stranger. My therapist thought writing down my daily emotions in a journal would help me to learn how to process my thoughts. Joan also stated in her piece of work that she felt expressing her feelings through a journal is healthy. As time went on, and I became older I started to learn more about myself. Keeping a journal has helped me tremendously in my daily life. It has taught me what triggers my anxiety, allowed me to figure how to prevent it, but also gave me a time that I can call "me time”. + Having read Joan Didion’s “On Keeping a Notebook,” I am going to discuss the importance of …show more content…

Joan Didion stated in her essay “On Keeping a Notebook” her purpose for a notebook “has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking.” She started to question her thinking “Why did I write it down?" She voiced that she clearly wanted to remember what she had written down, but what and how much exactly was that? Didion said, “Why do I keep a notebook at all?” Joan’s family members pointed out to her that her notebook contained lies, saying “Thats simply not true”. She knew her family was right, but she has trouble distinguishing between what she thought happened, and what solely happened. “The cracked crab I recall having for lunch the day my father came home from Detroit in 1945 must certainly be embroidery, worked into the day’s pattern to lend verisimilitude; I was ten years older would not now remember the cracked

Open Document