by Jackie Houchin
Once upon a time, in a WAY long time ago, before I had a smartphone, a computer, an online presence, or even a typewriter, I wrote with a pencil, on lined school paper. I wrote letters (to pen pals and cousins), stories (mostly tragically romantic vignettes in far-off places), and I wrote in small daily diaries.
You know those little books, about four by five inches, with a strap that wrapped across the pages and fit into a lock on the front, and had a half-inch, flat key to secure it. I mean, even a fork or a good slap could open them!
The pages were dated, but you had to fill in the year. And you had to write quite small if you had a lot to say, like I did. Wow, did they hold secrets! And souvenirs – another good reason for that little strap and key. I wrote about feelings, events, boys, teachers, embarrassments, fights, dreams, disappointments, and things or people who made me mad, jealous, or envious.
One day, I found and opened a thirty-five-year-old diary like that. Oh, my goodness! I slammed it shut and looked around me. Then I carried it to a small chair in a corner of the bedroom and opened it again.
I wrote THAT? And that? Oh, my!
I laughed. I cringed. I even cried a little. A couple of times, I gazed off into space, seeing and reliving a sweet incident. I’d smile and sigh.
How would my life be different if THAT had happened? Or hadn’t happened? Or if I’d said something else? Or acted quickly, nicely, or at least not selfishly? What if….?
What if?
That’s the way fiction writers often dredge up a story idea or outline. What if such and such happened, or someone said or did THAT?
I glanced down at the diary and thumbed through the pages, stopping now and then to read a heavily underlined passage. WHOA!
I eventually put the little book back into the cardboard box with maybe eight others like it. I’ll read them all, I promised myself. I’ll write a story or two. Is there enough for a book, I wondered?
I stretched the duct tape tightly across the flaps and penciled “diaries” on the front. Tomorrow we will take the last of these attic finds to our new house. After all the unpacking and settling in, I will dig out these diaries and sit at my computer, and type, “What if….?”
Halfway down the busy freeway to the new house, traveling at 65 mph, our heavily packed pick-up truck hit a pothole. In the passenger side mirror, I saw a small box jump and pitch itself over the truck’s railing. When it landed, the box split apart. Small square objects flew out and bounced into the bushes growing close along the side.
“OH!” I cried.
“What?” my hubby asked.
“My diaries! Didn’t you tie the boxes down?”
“I did!”
“But…”
There was no place to pull over. No going around. No going back, either along the freeway… or to that youthful time long ago.
I sat stunned. Then I laughed, imagining some homeless dude living in the bushes finding and being entertained by my teenage drama and angst. Or maybe a gang of miscreants wearing orange vests and carrying plastic bags would come by to clean up the roadside trash, and find them.
Hey, my stories could be read in jail! Perhaps even traded among the inmates for snacks or phone calls. Juicy sections could be copied on the backs of old envelopes and reread a hundred times. Pages might be torn out and passed on to new inductees as the old timers were released. My audience would grow! I might become “a best-selling author!”
Well, maybe not.
Anyway, that’s why I never wrote the “Great American Novel.”
Did you ever write in diaries? Do you keep a journal now? If so, is what you write “stream-of-consciousness” or does it have a specific purpose? Have you ever reread your previous ones from a year ago, or many years past?
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The Writers in Residence 
Jackie – what a wonderful, heartbreaking, hilarious tale!!
I still write every day in my journal. Somedays only half a line – sometimes lengthy tomes. And, yes, I use it all in my writings – and still plan to use the decades-old diaries for my Great American-Novel!!
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Oh, do it, Rosemary! Write that novel from your diaries. They would be soooo interesting! I mean, Cary Grant!!??
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I never kept a diary with personal things in it. I did keep one when we lived in France for three years and took trips to different countries. I wrote down where we went and what I saw. But I did and do keep a scrapbook with bits and pieces of my life in it. That’s where I got all the material for my autobiography. After all, they told my story in both words and pictures. There are other stories in the book, but they were gleaned from a good memory of a pretty fun life. As for your diary story, there a story there and you just wrote part of it in your post.
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Oh, yes, your scrapbooks – they are like picture-diaries. And they made that beautiful Scrapbook Life book perfect.
We all have ways to remember things, people, and places. Yours are so wonderfully visual.
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This is a lovely post—and a story within a story. I, too, keep a handwritten journal. I have for years, although I’ve had to discard some of them because they fill up too many drawers in my filing cabinet. I used to worry about someone coming across them and being appalled by what they read. Then I realized—my handwriting is so terrible that nobody would be able to decipher my scribbles. Sometimes even I can’t figure out what those words are.
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Bonnie, I’ve had to discard boxes of journals I’ve kept in the last dozen years. I used those cheap composition books you get at Staples for .99c. But they do take up room. I saved a few at the beginning of living in our new house, just for details.
And yes, I know about scribbled handwriting! Haha.
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I do keep notes about things that come up in my life and travels, but not in ongoing diaries, though I wish I had and could read them now! Interesting and thought-provoking post, Jackie.
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Thanks, Linda. Mine WERE interesting. Haha. I was horrified at first, thinking someone else might be reading them, but after a while, I thought it might be actually hilarious.
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I enjoyed your post, Jackie, mostly because of the entertaining way you told your story, but also because like many I wrote in a journal throughout my life. I received my first diary for my 13th birthday, so you can imagine the angst and drama that filled the pages. After a while I stopped making entries, and only picked up the habit again periodically throughout the years, and usually for a brief time. Each one reads like a human time capsule of my life at the time. I often wish I’d been more diligent about journaling. So many unanswered questions in those blank pages.
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I like your description of a diary – a human time capsule. That’s what they were, actually. Things seemed so complicated as a teenager, but whoa, compared to today? I’m happy with the way my life worked out, although, at times, oh, those surfer or actor heartthrobs! haha.
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Fun post, Jackie, and a good segue from my recent post about my current free writing practice. Over the years I’ve written in diaries (the kind with a lock and key) and notebooks. During the pandemic I started a journal using the Pages app on my iPad. I use that for recording day to day activities.
I especially enjoyed your fantasy about the prison inmates making you “a best-selling author!”
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Thanks, Maggie. As for the jailbirds, I can always imagine. Haha. I do wonder what happened to those little books, however. Probably the big sweep truck came by and sucked them up into oblivion. Ah well. Probably for the best.
I’ve never used Pages before. I should try it sometime.
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