On Margins
The space beside the text has always held more than we let on. Notes, doubts, small rebellions — the margin is where the real thinking happens.
There is a particular pleasure in reading a book that has been read before — not by you, but by someone else. You can tell from the faint pencil marks pressed into the paper, the passages that warranted a hesitant line down the side, the occasional question mark where meaning slipped loose.
The margin is where the reader becomes a writer.
The white space
Most of us learn early that writing happens in the middle of the page. The margins are borders — they keep the text orderly, give the eye a resting place, tell you where the thought begins and ends. But the best readers have always understood that the margin is an invitation.
Annotation is argument. When you underline a sentence, you are making a claim: this one matters. When you write but in the margin, you are entering into dialogue with the dead.
There is something worth protecting in the habit of reading slowly enough to have thoughts beside the text. Not just comprehension, but friction — the small resistance of your own mind pushing back against the words on the page.
The margin is where that friction leaves its mark.