Dear Diary

I have been writing in a diary for nearly ten years now. It has become as routine for me to write in a diary as it has to brush my teeth. I have a shelf in my book case full of over twenty diaries I have filled with transcriptions of nights out with friends, descriptions of boring school assignments, moans about menstrual cycles and bowel movements, about boredom and loneliness during illnesses. A catalogue of symptoms.

Some pages are stained from my tears. Some words are obnoxious and illegible from nights drinking. For years I wondered if my diaries would entertain anyone but me. Then I read these great diaries and then I understood the appeal:

The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

Anais describes her romances and her sessions with her psychoanalyst -- analyzing herself further in the diary after her sessions. She also analyzes her friends and her relationships with them. 

Anais took her diary almost everywhere with her and wrote in it throughout the day in incredible detail and candour. She was a dedicated diarist for most of her life. I must get my hands on other volumes of her diary.

Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr

Late in her life, painter Emily Carr wrote several great works of non-fiction. My favourite is this diary (or "Journal") in which she details her insecurities as an artist, her relationships with her animals and other artists. She writes about the natural beauty that inspired so much of her work and her ideas for her paintings. Very wise and emotionally mature, Emily muses on the choices, feelings and actions of the people around her, as well as her own. She also writes about her intimate every day life, her heart trouble and hospital visits.

Emily died of her illness a few years after she stopped writing in her diary. Her writing seemed to fill the void she felt after she was no longer well enough to go outdoors and paint. I highly recommend all of her writing and artwork.


The appeal I referred to is of getting inside someone's head, not of reading gossip about people. A diarist likely explores details most people don't even talk about, at least not in such great detail, let alone write about. 

As a diarist, I can identify with these works from Anais and Emily. We have all felt the need to explore ourselves through writing. I don't write to an imaginary audience, but to myself to figure life out. For me, writing is thinking. Of purging. Of celebrating.

I don't want anyone to read my diaries. Ever. I want them to be burned with me when I'm dead.

Life is Ruff

I wasn't sure if I would get to write an entry tonight because I've kept my sister's five month old shih poo in my room so she and my Mom can get a break. They both looked exhausted! I was happy to help, but puppy kept crying in his crate and I didn't think he would stop until I turned the lights off and got into bed. Phew! Finally, he went to sleep. His crying breaks my heart! I won't pay attention to him now, though because he has to keep his routine learn to go to bed when I tell him to.

Even though I haven't felt so well today, I still felt compelled to offer to take puppy tonight. I love him and it's nice that I get to give Mom and my sis a break. I like to look after puppy anyway because he makes me feel needed. I don't like being responsible only for myself. It's nice to know that I'm physically more up to looking after him than my mom and sister are right now! I feel strong and important. Puppy helps me realize my physical and mental strength. He gives me so much love!

This need I felt to care for something reminded me of Emily Carr's "Pause," a book comprised of sketches she drew while she was in a sanatorium for over a year in the early 1900's and a retrospective narrative of her experience in the sanatorium that she wrote somewhere near the end of her life in the 1940s. She couldn't paint anymore because she had heart trouble. In "Pause," Emily wrote a lot about some baby birds in a nest she kept by her bed at the sanitarium. Caring for the birds not only made her feel needed, but they amused her, helped her pass the time and make friends with the other patients who came to visit her birds. She drew sketches of the birds and so they helped nurture her artistic talent.

My life has also been on "pause" and I feel like puppy helps me much like the birds helped Emily. No matter how awful I feel, I feed him, take him outside and supervise him around the house. If I wasn't doing that I would just be watching television! Puppy is far more amusing than television anyway. His cuddles are very comforting during bad times. I write about him a lot in my diary and he's given me many ideas for my dog-related fiction. Puppy is so bouncy and fun. He helps to bring those qualities out in me when I become too much of an old lady.

I can hear his tags dangling in his cage and I don't want him to start crying again, so I'd better go! He's staying at my house on Christmas Eve night and morning! I'm so excited. I think we both need to rest up for Santa!