*dimsumdolly* - the different morsels of the life of a foodie

Dear Diary

What's in My Journal

Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.

Poem: "What's in My Journal" by William Stafford, from Crossing Unmarked Snow © University of Michigan Press. Reprinted with permission.

I love this little poem 'cos I've kept a diary since I was 12. I used to scribble a lot as a teenager and the scribblings got progressively less as I grew older. These days I have two diaries. This blog and a hard copy one which I reserve for my deepest thoughts and feelings.

My first diary was given to me by my mum when I was 7. It had Hello Kitty on its cover. My first entry into it was made in the same year I got it. I wrote about my mother, father, sister and cousin, and drew a few pictures. Then I stopped there. I only started writing in it again when I was 12. It probably got lost amongst my toys in the intervening five years.

Anyway, I love spiral notebooks for diaries or leather-bound ones, or a Moleskineus notebook. Or any pretty diary really! My one critieria is that the pages are not ruled. I like plain pages so that I can doodle whenever I want to.

I keep all my diaries and sometimes I think maybe I should start a bonfire and burn them. But I think they're special memories (if only to myself) and I'll just keep it for my own reading pleasure when I'm old and greying so that I can laugh at the foolishness I displayed in my youth. :)

Posted by DSD at February 16, 2005 8:57 AM | TrackBack