My Hodgepodge Diaries

    If one thinks of a series of diaries, they might visualize a line of uniformed volumes on a shelf.  I started writing diaries in 1973 when we immigrated to Canada and continued with them until 2003, when I retired.  Above you can see some of them.   Each new year I had to scrounge around to find a “diary” to write in, so they ended up a real hodgepodge of books and booklets. 

    Certainly, they are not a uniform collection, but they are really valuable to me, and I am so glad I took the time each night to write in them.

    I have been slowly reading through them and it is a strange experience.  Some of the mundane things I had mentioned in the diaries, I remember quite clearly, while other experiences that seemed noteworthy, I have totally forgotten about.  I come upon interesting things that had happened, but now I scratch my head and wonder about some of the details that I failed to mention, which are now gone in the fog of time.

    Each Friday at the McBride Library we have a “Writer’s Group” that meets and writes.  That’s what we do there:  We just write, whatever we are working on.  I find it hard to write at home with so many distractions and a faltering motivation, but when I go to the library to write, that is what I do.  At the library I have been reading through my diaries, digesting and picking out the good bits and writing them down. 

    I am so thankful for my diaries and having the chance to “re-live” the past through these documented  memories.  I still have a lot more to go since I am only in the 1980 diary.  The 1980 diary is the old large gray book.  It was an old blank accounting book that I bought while working at the Goodwill Store as a Conscientious Objector in 1971.  At the start of 1980, I couldn’t find a regular log for the year, so in desperation I just used the old accounting book as a diary. 

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca