Everyday Canvas

The Diary Experience

I love the idea of a diary. I think a well-kept diary builds up the identity of the person keeping it. My diaries have served me in so very many ways. Keeping a diary was introduced to me by my fourth grade teacher, and my mother encouraged it, for the simple reason that she wanted to read it when I wasn’t looking.

One day, while in my very early teens, I caught her doing just that, but I acted as if I didn’t notice her transgression, as I instantly realized that the diary could give me a manipulative edge. After that, I didn’t write anything personal in it but things like, “I have such a bad life. My friend C is having a slumber party. I know Mom won’t allow me. So I won’t even bother asking. I feel so upset, I couldn’t concentrate in class, today.” I also left the diary in a place, usually beside my bed on my night table, where she could see it easily. This way, with that party and other things, I was far ahead of her.

Then, when I was a couple more years older, I felt I really needed to keep a diary for myself, but I didn’t want her to read my diary anymore. I discussed the situation with my best friend, who also happens to be my cousin, as she too wanted her privacy from her sisters. Together, we devised an alphabet with our own signs, for example an upside-down u became c and a dot in the middle of the upside-down u became ch; the shape of heart was s and the dot in the middle of the heart was sh. To confuse our diary readers, we threw in two or three real letters. To make things even more difficult for others, we carried paper and pencil in our pockets and wrote notes to each other for practice and for planning our dastardly deeds.

One day, we espied my mother and our uncle pouring over one of those notes, trying to decipher our code, as they didn’t know if it was a code or an alphabet. This uncle was very smart, as he was a chess master, mathematician, and lawyer, and could figure out stuff that others could not, but even he gave up at the end, making us feel as if we were geniuses.

I kept my diary until well after I was married, but then life became too busy, too complicated, and I didn’t have the time for it. Even though I wrote in a note-book every now and then, I regret missing the track record of my experiences in those years. A mind is such that it forgets what it deems minimal or passé, but a regularly kept diary helps, be it about feelings and opinions or the log of events.

Only about 15-20 years ago, I started again to keep a physical diary regularly. A diary is a great way to treasure emotions and experiences; yet, specifically for writers, it is highly valuable for honing our senses and abilities of observation. Emerson said: “The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things.” For that end, keeping a diary has a vital function in our lives.

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Prompt: Let's talk "Many of us associate keeping a diary with our emotionally volatile teenage years. But new research suggests that recording our run-of-the-mill, daily experiences, rather than just our highs and lows, could bring us unexpected joy." Do you agree or disagree? Do you keep a diary?