Florilegium

It’s been said my mind is a steel trap. Not by me, mind you. But, others have said as much.

I’m sadly not able to live up to that moniker. I forget, and while it brings me joy to reread books or rewatch movies, I sometimes think that it would be nice to never forget.

That aside (and maybe later I’ll write about Jorge Luis Borges’s short story Funes the Memorious), I can be surprised. 

I opened a book I was given at one my graduations, though I don’t know which. A Book of Graduate Wisdom, full of quotes for the next stage in my life. On the inside cover, in my sloppy handwriting, I had written florilegium.

While I don’t recall writing it, its meaning at least came back to me.

“A florilegium (plural florilegia) was a compilation of excerpts or sententia from other writings and is an offshoot of the commonplacing tradition.”