Same but different

On diaries, walking, and all that jazz

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”
—Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Hey y’all,

I did some rearranging of my shelves in the studio last week and once again, I found myself flipping through old notebooks and diaries.

I’ve kept notebooks since I was a teenager, but I started keeping a bonafide diary in 2017 when I was 33. Even though I find myself exploring the same themes over and over again, the form and utility of the diaries change a lot over time.

I do not have a great memory for things that happen to me, so in the beginning, the diary was about recording, getting things down. A lot of this had to do with the fact that my kids were 5 and 2 at the time, and I was trying to capture as many of their shenanigans as I could.

Here in my 2018 diary, for example, is a bit of dialogue from a 5-year-old that otherwise would’ve been lost to time:

Lately, the kids are getting older and more laconic, and the days have been steady and regular, so the diary is less and less about recording what’s been happening to me, and more about exploring whatever it is I find is in my mind at sunrise or thereabouts.

I’ve also been doing a lot of planning in my diary. Instead of writing about what happened, I write about what I want to happen, or what needs to happen. I even wondered if I should start to experiment with a whole new format:

(Steal the idea if you want, because I’m not sure I’m going to bother.)