Grind Writers today

I’m glad, really glad, I went to the Grind Writers group today. But I wasn’t feeling that way when I woke up.

I am not a morning person. 

For a 10 o’clock start, I set my alarm for what I consider to still be the middle of the night: 7:30am. "No! -- I don’t want to write at bloody ten o’clock in the morning, why did I get myself into this?” 

Need coffee. Strong. But only one cup because I’m going to need to order a nice big fat artistically-topped almond milk café latte (was that enough detail for you?) at the coffee house where we meet.

Oh, um. But. That’s two hours down the line. One go-back. Just one go back to bed, trying to avoid hearing those raindrops smattering down my window, harbingers of today’s predicted monsoon bringing 70mm of what makes Vancouver so dreary and damp in November.

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Fast forward to 12:30 when the group is over. 

I'm so glad I went. And I’m so grateful to the others who trudged out in the rain by bike, transit, and car to the café to join me in that inexplicably magical activity of writing.

Magic with laptops. Magic with pens. Magic pouring into dogeared coil notebooks or into fancy leatherbound journals and everything in between. 

Getting it down.

Getting what down?

Well, we're all in this huge existential cave. And we writers are standing on piles of rocks, with a pointy flint, scratching out things  on the cave walls. 
Scratch-scratch-scratch: I noticed this. Scratch-scratch-scratch: That was weird. Scratch-scratch-scratch: wtf was that all about?    Scratch-scratch-scratch: That experience drained my soul. Scratch-scratch-scratch: This was fabulous; this made my heart sing; that hurt, this was bad; I learned thus and such……….

Our experience. Here. Now. In this place, this consciousness, this experience of life. Ours each our own. And all so different, but overlapping in variously-contorted Venn diagrams.

We’re getting it down. Whatever it is to each of us. If we tell the truth, we’re not even necessarily getting it down for others. We’re getting it down (whatever it is) for ourselves. It keeps us sane.

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Today I brought my pseudo-Pandora’s Box. It’s an homage to Bonnie Nish’s Pandora’s Box. She’s the ED of Pandora’s Collective, a creative  literary events-generating group. Bonnie brings her Pandora’s Box to writers’ groups. It’s full of many and varied items, 3D writing prompts. She hands one to each person. It could be anything.
Then you write.

Sometimes I actually agonize over the writing prompt. What will call forth those deep moments of reflection and revelation that sometimes, if we’re lucky, happen? I try many forms.

Writing prompts are completely unpredictable. 

Sometimes the most mundane item will bring forth a cascade of deep and meaningful writing. And another you've laboured over is meh.   

My pseudo-Pandora’s Box never lets me down. Maybe it is magic. It has, like Bonnie’s, a collection of objects from this world. Everyone reaches in the box and chooses an item without looking. The whole idea of free-writes is to not have too much time to think before plunging right into the writing. Writers have a propensity to overthink, well, everything and we can get stalled that way. We call it 'block' but it's just fear. The free-write pushes you past the fear. It gently forces you to, as the late Dr. Claire Weekes, advised: "Wait on no mood."

So we have our prompts and start to write for 15 minutes. The table goes silent. We hear the soundtrack of the jazz that Aperture’s owner Ryul collects.

We write. It's a special kind of silence.

The timer goes off. Too soon.

People volunteer to read. And by the end, I am very, very glad I didn’t give in to my hygge-proneness today and that I got myself to that coffee shop. So we read, our raw unedited output:

T. got a Tarot card, The High Priestess—didn’t like it, but nevertheless wrote a moving piece about aspirations. 

I. got a little jewellery box with keys inside, and wrote a 3rd person POV piece about someone getting that prompt in a writing group and what happened.

Of course you rarely can finish something in 15 mins., so we don’t know where that is going, but the point is, it was a start. The pump was primed.

G. shared some personal struggles, beginning with a question I think we’ve all had at some time or other as we were poised to read: “How much do I want to tell these people?”

I got the top of an IBM corporate souvenir, a Selectric® paperclip holder, which took me back to my days working for the world’s most corporate corporation.

J. got a little plastic superhero figurine.
M. drew a hand-inked envelope that had  been re-addressed many times from which she spun an intriguing tale. 

N. wove a narrative about his relationship with the train and cars from an old Translink transfer card and how they affected his career at times.  

And B. looked at that egg slicer and embroidered a tale about a women’s encyclopedia of inventions in Canada.

And that was just the stuff that fell out of our pens and fingertips in a free-write. 

It is so relaxing and encouraging to be with fellow writers who understand, who don’t expect their cohorts to spit out Pride & Prejudice, War & Peace, or Ode on a Grecian Urn on a first go at it -- as the uninitiated, and friends and family, are sometimes prone to.

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Later people read the work they had brought from home. More polished. Feedback before submission. 

I am again so glad I turned out and got there:  T. read us a long and powerful poem bringing us right into the pain she endures on a daily basis struggling to become who she is, with powerful emotional obstacles.

I got to hear N.’s poem, “Romantic,” which spurred a lot of conversation and feedback. And N.’s draft for a magazine piece that left us angry for all the right reasons. And another chapter in the wonderful experimental novel from M., who is such a keen and amusing observer of human traits and our 21st century culture.

Oh yes. It was worth it. It always is. Every time. Some times more than others, and this was one of the STMTOs. 

And worth it to have all that conversation, exchanging all those ideas about everything from the difference between romance and romantic; the #MeToo phenomenon; stigma in the workplace when employees do disclose their mental health issues; the deep anger that sours the soul in an emotionally-abusive relationship;  tender reminiscences; personal histories and self-acceptance, and much more — as people took a chance on reading something close to their hearts or risked reading something not yet as perfect as they would like; as others took flights of fancy into the past, into the future; and still others perhaps marked up on that big cave wall how it was going in life today, maybe notched off how far they had come towards something.

Tears held back. Laughter shared. All grist for the mill—our messy, contradictory, incomprehensible, wonderful mill of human experience here now or then when.  

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Create your own Pandora's Box. You can put anything--small--in it. Common everyday objects or arcaneries. Then, every day just pick something out, and write. As Bonnie says, "Take the challenge. See what you can whip up."

Wine & Write with Grind Writers - May 20, 7pm

Wine & Write

“Ernest Hemingway loved the Mojito, William Faulkner had his mint juleps, and F. Scott Fitzgerald was convinced gin was the way to go (he thought its smell would be undetectable on his breath).” ~NPR

Could a little sip from the bottle help all of us writers? We’ll find out at an experimental Wine Tasting/Writer’s Workshop on Friday, May 20 at 7pm.

We’ll sniff and sip before we get set on a variety of writing journeys. There will be reading aloud of stories, but don’t worry, the wine should unleash your confidence, inhibitions, and brilliance… or so this is the thought. Very experimental! Definitely fun! I will be leading this as the writing facilitator.

When the wine is in, the wit is out

~Proverb floating around the Internet

I guess we’ll find out.

*Seating is limited so please sign up early to save your spot.

When	Friday, May 20, 7 to 9pm
Where	Harvest Table, Legacy Liquor Store (yes, a liquor store with a beautiful wooden table where we can sip and write). 1633 Manitoba Street in Olympic Village. Five minute walk from Science World/Main Street Skytrain.
Cost	$25 for Wine, Bread and Cheese
Who	Who: For writers and aspiring writers led by writer and writing facilitator Gloria Chang (www.gloriachang.com)
How	How: Sign up through Gloria’s recently launched meetup group for eaters and drinkers: www.meetup.com/culinary-adventures-vancouver Or send Gloria an email: gloria@gloriachang.com
What to bring	A notebook and pen or laptop to write on.

  

Here’s a link to a special web feature by NPR on writers and their cocktails

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6624971

More info:   Gloria Chang

E:   gloria@gloriachang.com
T:   www.twitter.com/gloriajchang

What the Free-write Challenge at the Summer Dream Literary Festival Was All About

Free-write Challenge – Summer Dream Literary Arts Festival

Lumberman’s Arch, Stanley Park
Vancouver, British Columbia
July 26, 2008

Posted here are a series of free-writes written by people attending the Summer Dream Literary Festival, which was held in Stanley Park, beside fabled Lumberman’s Arch, on Saturday July 26th. The Grind Writers Group of Vancouver issued a challenge to writers attending the fest and to the random beach-goers who just happened along.

We wanted people to experience the joy of free-writing, and the pure bliss of writing-without-editing, believing as we do in the total separation of “church and state” when it comes to writing and editing.

The challenge was to choose a story starter that Grind Writers spent many a cozy hour by blazing fires, sipping on hot toddies, and creating on dark and stormy nights. People drew starters randomly out of a hat, starters such as “The couple on the bench…” or “A kayak glides by…" Their mission (if they chose to accept it and about 20 people did) was to free-write for 10-15 minutes, while the Summer Dream Festival rocked & roared around them, bands played, poets declaimed, seagulls screetched, crows fought, and children zigzagged amongst adult legs.

The only rule was no stopping, no going back, no editing while writing. Just to write – full steam ahead. Here's hoping you will enjoy the creativity, imagination and rich variety of the work that emerged.

19 pieces are posted from the Free-write Challenge so keep clicking on "Older Posts" and you'll see them all.

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For more information on the annual Summer Dream Literary Festival or Pandora's Collective, visit: http://www.pandorascollective.com/sdrfestival.html

Returning - Lesley Prentis

Returning
©2008 Lesley Prentis
Starter was: “In the light of distant civilization he could see his ancestors stir in the totem…”

I no longer stand straight and tall
I now lean a little more each year
Eventually my light will fade
And I will lie
Embraced by the land
Where my end will come
In slow decay
Returning to the soil
That which gave me life.

My children have moved on
To new lands and new homes
Remembering dimly
The stories of our ancestors
Theirs and mine
In time they will make new stories.

Lost in his own life - Shelley Haggard

Lost in his own life
©2008 Shelley Haggard

In the light of distant civilization, he could see his ancestors stir in the totem. Stanley Park was quiet. The Sunday crowds that had circled the totems earlier in the day, hunting the perfect angle, the perfect distance, with their myriad cameras, were gone. Now it was just him gauging the shadows the totems cast, trying to see if they were writing directions for him on the grass. He was lost, not physically, he was lost in his own life. It had become a maze that he couldn’t navigate on his own any more, and he had come here for help.

He felt the ancestors’ presence fully, could hear them drumming in the echo of his heartbeat. He could hear them chanting old words that lifted his spirit to position where it could look Eagle Clansmen in their eyes. Those eyes penetrated the shields he had placed in his mind as protection from the battering the humans in his world kept inflicting. Eagle spirit telegraphed an ancient wisdom into his brain. “Trust yourself,” it said. “Do not let the negative voices of others rule your spirit. Your spirit, mind, and body should operate as one—-then life will be as full as it can be.”

He got the message and he felt a calm descend. The negative voices within and without were getting too much of his precious time. He resolved to cast them out, to get back to what made him happiest, creating art through carving; showing gratitude to the ancestors.

Even if the sun should set - Kayla Feenstra

Even if the sun should set
©2008 Kayla Feenstra

Stars in her eyes
But the sun hasn’t set
they shimmer
and she dances
innocent, perhaps
but so wise
and she stops to pick up
her fancy
She won’t remember
what it was
but I will
and I watch, enthralled
and enchanted
her feet catching
small leverages to higher ground…
always higher farther, more
with her, never satisfied
her insatiable thirst for
beauty applauds me
I have succeeded
my work is done—
she will look always to the skies
the mountains, the trees, always up,
never to the rocks, the weeds,
the dirt, the garbage – down
and as she holds the
pink-glassed seashell
next to her ear
I wonder what great sage
has been hidden inside,
whispering lost secrets
and promises for joy
and love and happiness,
always dancing
with stars in her eyes,
even if the sun should set
and the day turn black.

Harder than I thought to grow up - Maximilliano Gonzalez San Juan

Harder than I thought to grow up
by Maximilliano Gonzalez San Juan

I’m travelling around the world
Looking for myself.
So far I’ve found friends and smiles
But no luck with giving peace to my heart.
I’m scared, at 28 years old,
Having so much energy to
Waste away and no plan for it. It’s
Harder than I thought to grow up
Even though it’s a one-way street.

My heart is filled with anger
But I have no clue where it’s from.
Contaminated with TV and Internet
I hope that my generation
Will find a cure for our disease.

My solution so far
Is to try my best and hopefully
G*d will take care of the rest.

Respectfully submitted…

A man and his chickadee family - George

A man and his chickadee family
©2008 George
Story starter was: “On the edge of the Beaver Pond, playful chickadees whiz by…”

The random pile of colourful covers, jackets, plastic parts stirs at one end. An old sneaker kicks at the hidden shopping cart sending one wheel spinning.

“Owhh! Shit! Damn toe!” comes from under the other end of the pile. A hand waves at the green and yellow sleeping bag that covers the head end of the cloth pile. The hand parts the pile, showing a fully haired head, eyes squinting in the morning light.

A chickadee whizzes by, playfully stopping near the cloth pile. The man slowly turns his head to look directly at the chickadee. It cocks its head at the man, hops twice, then zips into the air toward the rushes on the edge of Beaver Pond.

The man, disappointed, stares after the little bird. After a minute of waiting to see his only friend, the man sinks back down into his possessions.

Two chickadees whiz in from the path toward the man. One stops on a dime on a thin branch over the man, chickadee’ing at him like laughter. He smiles up at it. The other chickadee zips between them, pulling the laughing bird along to more adventures down the path.

The man sinks down again into his pile. He looks over to the sky showing above the pond. “Better get up. Might be late, heh heh.” He rolls over, grunts as he settles back into a more comfortable position, but hits his toe again, “Owhh! Shit! Damn toe!”

I will return - Andrew Beddoes

I will return…
©2008 Andrew Beddoes

The waves rolling in have a rhythm and calm that take me back to my childhood, visiting North Vancouver, laying at the beach. The beach was cold and alive. What it was, it was the rains from Earth’s early atmosphere, the water which begat the plant kingdom, from whence animals came; to my mother it was the source of all giving. And surely I will return to the sea, in our cloudy future, and become the waves rolling in.

And the ferry sales by... - Barbara Coleman

And the ferry sails by…
©2008 Barbara Coleman
Story starter was: “And the ferry sails by, a passenger waving and pointing at me……”

And on the ferry sailing by a passenger was waving and pointing at us, or at least that was what it seemed to all the passengers on my side.

Anyone who takes the ferry from Tsawwassen to Victoria knows at approximately mid-point the ferries pass each other. Our passengers looked at each other in wonderment. Was there a problem with our vessel that we were not aware of?

Only I knew the secret. My love as waving and pointing at me.

A storm is coming - Addena Sumter-Freitag

A storm is coming
©2008 Addena Sumter-Freitag


The storm is coming. There was no denying. You could smell it. (You know that scent just before it hits). It’s like the air freezes as it nears, and the next thing you feel is the impact. The pounding numbs you after a while, and you feel like a boxer after a good ‘spar.’ It takes a while for the colours to spread on the canvas. The obvious colours— the reds—spread out, splatter and splotch on contact, but the blues and the yellows and blacks and purples appear on their own time, in their own pattern, depending. Sometimes it’s almost like painting at the summer festival colouring tent. I can see the perfect open hand pattern .. here.. on my cheek. My lips are matching the hired clown. Big, and puffed, and look! split like a pea pod.


The marks and bumps, that are camouflaged by eighteen dollars of Mac cover, throb and ache as I see the lightning flashing in your eyes. My body quivers as you roar in that thunderous boom, your fists opening and closing. The hate that drips like poison in the air makes me brace my soul ‘cause it lets me know .. A storm is imminent.

The couple - Darlene

The couple
©2008 Darlene


The couple on the bench sat quietly as they peered over English Bay. Until something came over the wife and she immediately started chattering a blue streak, while the husband listened attentively, occasionally getting a word in edgewise. They have been together for many years and this has been part of their daily routine. They finally decide it is time to go home and begin their way back to the bus stop.

The empty kayak - Louise

The empty kayak
©2008 Louise


I was sitting quietly facing the water thinking of nothing in particular when a noise caught my attention. I squinted into the sun, shading my eyes to get a better look. I was so surprised to see a kayak glide by, but no one was in it. This can’t be, I told myself; it must be a mistake. Where was the owner of the kayak! I began to ponder the possible reasons – did the owner fall out? -- was there a leak? -- maybe it had been stolen then released? My mind became distracted and began to wander until I was drawn to a commotion down the beach where a small crowd had formed. I heard voices raised in excitement. Suddenly there appeared………

The empty kayak - Peter Lojewski

The empty kayak
©2008 Peter Lojewski


A kayak glides by. Sleek, no one is inside. Green as the river, upside no one near by. Oh, my God! Where is the kayaker—floating nearby? The kayak on is way, effortless in its manoeuvre, missing the jagged. It disappears in the bend of the river, out of sight Then bobbing along the river a body floats by. A lifeless body. Oh, my God! Drag it ashore and see a hole in the head of the kayaker. A sniper bullet found the mark. But, why? A former politician, corrupt and criminal who stole from us. No longer enjoys spending his/her ill gotten gains.

The couple - Liz Ong

The couple
©2008 Liz Ong


Shoulder against shoulder, they sit on a worn wooden bench on Main Street. The side of her head tilts towards him and fits perfectly in the place where his shoulder meets his neck. I see this couple once a week, she in her wide-brimmed hat and a matching blouse, modest knee-length skirt, nylons and heels; he with his freshly-ironed black suit. He is a Chinese gentleman in his fifties, she a Caucasian woman with bright red lipstick and shining powder over the worn old skin. They shine with ageless joy, the joy of being together, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. I wonder how they met, how they came together in this place where Chinatown and downtown meet.

This time I approach. “You’re a beautiful couple,” I say shyly, smiling.

“Thank you," they giggle and I leave them, giggling myself.

Twisted homonyms vs. Californian Spanish? - Jill Binder

Twisted homonyms vs. Californian Spanish?
©2008 Jill Binder

There is a man on stage from California. (I just noticed you’ll never read my handwriting so I better print—it’ll be interesting how it changes my writing.) Half of his poems are in Spanish. Just as he says there is a richness to the language. There are sonorous sounds, melodious trebles, a fluidity to the rush of tongue. English, our Canadian English, sounds chopping in comparison. Not choppy like Cantonese, and certainly not one steady stream of water like Mandarin. We are the in-between. We re the bastard child of many fathers. We have Latin, Greek, Italian, French. We have strange tenses and twisted homonyms. I hear that learning English is one of the most difficult things to do. Why would anyone want to? When they could instead have the soft ballad of Parisian French, or the deep bass of this man’s Californian Spanish. I blame globalization. The U.S. media making American drinks, sneakers, movies, and television cool. English is—what was that European amalgamation language they tried to instate?—English has become that … the language that is not its own but a child bred in back alleys with many dirty lovers.

It has grown up to be the rock star everyone wants to be.

I want to be this man’s Californian Spanish.

A time when there are no more words - Charlene

A time when there are no more words
©2008 Charlene

So I’ve picked “beach combing” as a prompt for the impromptu writing exercise. Have stumbled across a writers’ festival in Stanley Park – hear a children’s storyteller shrieking joyfully to my right; a man on another stage thanking people for the opportunity to be heard—he starts his reading with an Incan invocation—has survived the Spanish Inquisition.

“Listen, you who abide in the Ocean In the Sky.” Reminds me how much we all long to be heard—long for a listener—when beach combing—see how cleverly I return to the topic?—when beach-combing, I find myself listening to the ocean inside, waves lapping gently or cracking relentlessly and then to the sweet relief of the water flowing – knowing the Earth will survive, in all its beauty, long after my petty problems have been put to rest.

There’s a crow hopping towards me – another lifts off, crosses the flight path of a white seagull’s outstretched wings. I realize I, too, am dressed today in black and white, but inside am singing green and inspired by the peaceful gathering of people around me—biking, talking, relaxing, listening to each other—then—WAR—we are also Canada—a nation sending our young sons to Afghanistan—to kill “insurgents”—read Afghan citizens who will not tow the Western line. It is hard to hold this newly-budding optimism with the seeming obliviousness to that horror being carried out—in our names, with our tax dollars, and the blood of our people and the terror they bring to a distant country—this is a war about oil—not about compassion. When will we take the responsibility to live our principles? Democracy is not about invading others for our gain.

Sometimes there comes a time when there are no more words.

Who's afraid of Sylvia Plath? - Jennifer Getsinger

Who’s afraid of Sylvia Plath?
©2008 Jennifer Getsinger
Prompt was: “What stops me from writing every day is………” (blue paper)

Nothing. Nothing stops me from writing except my own choices not to write. Those choices may favour paid work, which is a good thing or too many crossword puzzles, sudoku, cooking, gardening, or other things that fill in the day because I’m not a very disciplined time manager. I have probably written more “every days” than most published writers. I know I was devoted to daily journal-writing for the first fifteen years of my journal, and relatively dedicated to writing often for the rest, about another quarter century. That should add up to forty-one and a half years since I started the journal.

Now my writing challenges are different—in addition to the journal-diary, I try to write down and get around to writing about a dozen novels I have made up in my head over the years. It just seems so silly to do that when I hardly work enough to get by, but now it’s possible due to doing editorial work at home on my own schedule, part time.

I’m almost done typing up the first draft of a love story with the working title, Red Rock Romance, about a couple of geologists. I’ve promised it to an editor so am somewhat motivated to finish it, although the thought of anyone reading these hopelessly naïve and boring stories is kind of scary.

Another work is a novel in diary format, which is constrained by having a limited point of view and a chronological narrative by necessity from the diary structure. This is not the flip and cheerful brief diary of Adrian Mole or Bridget Jones; nor is it the morose journal of Virginia Woolf, or fascinating social life of Anaïs Nin. It is loosely based on my own style of describing the natural world around me as I proceed through life as more of an observer than participant. But the plot is not based on my own story any more than a sparkly micaceous garnet schist resembles the mushy black mud from which it was metamorphosed. This one is called Moss & Woodsmoke and is on its fifth draft. What keeps me from editing it to a finished work is my commitment to finishing the romance first, a story with more of a typical narrative arc.

What keeps me from writing is mainly embarrassment. Embarrassment that my writing is not scintillating enough (I guess we can’t all write diaries as clever as Sylvia Plath, but then I wouldn’t want the same results). Embarrassment about trying to write intimate moments without creating mockery in the reader. Embarrassment about weak stories. And lately, embarrassment that it has taken me so long to write them down. When I tried to promote the romance to an editor from a well-known publisher of romances recently, I was told my story—which takes place in the 1970s and 1980s—wasn’t “contemporary.” After a few drinks I got over feeling depressed that I was so old my real life couldn’t even be defined as “contemporary,” and decided I would start a new genre of “historical fiction!”

Mr. Zipper - (c)2008 Theresa Dunphy

Mr. Zipper
©2008 Theresa Dunphy

They’ve got the facts wrong again about Mr. Zipper. Here is what he is really like:

Stout and smart—a whippet really. Short of genius and already a Mensa member, although he never gloats. Humble he is, Mr. Zipper. Stocky posture brings forth his grounded presence, but at times it is easily misconstrued as potentially aggressive or possibly personal-space invading. Mr. Zipper is a fifty-nine year old Albanian that wears a reputation unbeknownst to him. What he’s really like is kind and gentle. This man’s hands have been worked through the bone and into marrow itself. A person seeing the scaling flesh dangling from between his fingers might presuppose the digits are of eighty or more years. Mr. Zipper has hands to shake upon first greeting that hug one’s heart within three strokes, and he leans softly upon your eyes, silently whispering, “Let go but hang on.” Most people think Mr. Zipper is homeless. The fact is Mr. Zipper is a millionaire a few times over. Mr. Zipper hardly speaks with words. He is a man of movements and gestures and subtleties.

Where did Mr. Zipper come from? No one knows for sure. He is Albanian, that’s a fact. Rumors have circulated that Mr. Zipper is somehow related to Mother Teresa. Since he has an overwhelming presence, (one might consider spiritually engulfing once one is within his zone) there is no doubt he is studied or practiced in meditation and centering. At a distance, Mr. Zipper seems to offend the general public’s ideality of aestheticism, what with his second-hand torn and tethered t-shirts and cargo pants. Every one knows those pants. The forest green pair we’ve only known him to be seen in. The ones that have a zipper with a Holy Cross on them.

Mr. Zipper is really like a friend who shows up in the midst of a flash flood. You always remember that day—and never forget his name.

A dear diary - (c)2008 Belle Curd

A dear diary
©2008 Belle Curd

A long time ago one Christmas, my mother gave me a five-year diary. She must have known I liked writing and now I had my very own book to write in every day. At first I started out enthusiastically but occasionally missed a few days. No problem. I’d catch up or maybe write more than space allowed for each day. I had fun embellishing the pages with odds and ends from school. I shared my secrets, thrills, accomplishments, tears, and the mundane thoughts of an adolescent. Amazingly, I still have that old diary, tattered and torn though it is. I have been keeping a diary ever since, thanks to that precious gift my mother gave to me.