No matter how much I write, I think my favorite thing I ever wrote will always be my childhood diary, which spanned two books and eight years from ages six through fourteen.
My first diary was given to me for Easter by my parents when I was six years old. It had a lock on the side. On the cover, in metallic ink, was a poem about dreams (which I still have memorized). I filled the pages with hot pink ink and talked to my diary like it was a real person (Today is Easter and I got things to say to you, Diary).
A year later I added a spiral journal to the mix and for some reason that must have made sense at the time, alternated between writing in my journal and writing in my diary. Perhaps I'd forgotten the code to unlock my diary. (These days, you can spin the dial into any combination and it'll pop open for you - it's old and tired, and I feel that.)
Anyway, at some point I found it necessary to inscribe the inside cover of my journal with the declaration, If I ever grow up to become a famous author, please look at this, and write a true story about my life. (If they still write books in the future.) This is true and in order. I hope you can read sloppy handwriting. I also felt compelled to autograph it and document the exact date of my signature, including the fact that it was a Tuesday and that I was 10# (ten).
Throughout the pages are questionnaires I created and filled out, pretending to be an adult version of myself. It includes things like my dream phone number (624-2260) and the fact that I'll have a dog named Cookie II (thinking ahead to when Cookie the Original passed on). Among the many countries adult Marisa visits are London, Paris, and the Hawaiian Islands. (Geography has never been my strong suit.)
Though my entries rarely delved deeper than descriptions of mundane activities (eating chocolate chip ice cream after getting my ends trimmed, for example), reading the words of my much younger self transports me back to the sensations and a mindset that not even old photographs and home movies bring so clearly into focus.
Like my passion for movies and television, which bounces off the pages of my detailed recaps of Married with Children episodes.
Seeing my "dream phone number" in print reminded me of my neurotic obsession with even numbers (if I bumped my arm on something I'd have to bump the other side to get re-balanced, and if I drew three M&Ms out of a bag I'd put one back or grab one more).
It's pretty cool to reexamine things in hindsight. I mean, how many people know exactly what they wore ("shoulder length parrot earrings") and did (watched Unsolved Mysteries and Married with Children) on their husband's 11th birthday, even though they were 13 years away and 28 days away from meeting each other?
I've relearned a lot about myself through my diary. For starters, I realize now that I watched too much TV and ate too much ice cream (nary a day goes by I didn't have a dish or two of mint chocolate chip or Moose Tracks). I also ate an alarming number of Sloppy Joes. On March 30, 1994, I ate three in one sitting.
My diaries also remind me what a weird kid I was. It's probably a good thing I had a diary as an outlet for all my confessions, like my burning desire to be 80 years old.
But unlike the opinion columns I wrote for my undergrad's newspaper, I'm not embarrassed by anything in those magical capsules of my childhood. I was so awesomely egregious I can’t help but be amazed by myself. I mean, I had the gall to scoff at a classmate who was the first to wear flared jeans to school in the same paragraph I'd proudly described wearing short white cowboy boots that have a multi-color western fringe with beads dangling off them.
I was struck by how clearly my little voice and personality came through those pages that I used my old diaries as the basis for the heroine in my first novel. It's kind of a slow burner - you don't find out what I had for dessert on June 11, 1996 until page 258 - but I've gotten feedback that the voice if very authentic.
