I have never kept a diary for longer than a few months, though I have made several well-intentioned attempts. The first journal I can remember writing in was a neon pink, plastic-bound notebook with an elaborate latch that only opened and closed to the sound of my voice. It was a Fisher-Price toy for young girls, and I filled its pages with the prosaic minutiae of an elementary school student: classroom dynamics, school bullies, occasional crushes. I liked writing, except I only wrote in the parroted phrases I gleaned from television shows; the Dear Diary openers and the Until Tomorrow sign-offs were, to my newly discerning eye, unequivocal components in the whole diary-writing business. I wrote neatly, often in a painstakingly perfect script that only wavered when I approached the centerfold. I skipped lines, too. And I never wrote on the left page.
Even with all of this attention to detail, I stopped writing halfway through, started another diary in junior high school—a college-ruled marble notebook, which I used more deliberately for essays—then stopped writing that one altogether, too. As I grew older, I invested in more serious diaries: leather-bound Moleskine journals and watercolor artist sketchbooks. I purchased Japanese calligraphy markers and German ballpoint pens. I wanted to become a writer, but each time I started the daily practice of it, I somehow managed to doubt my purpose or ability and abandoned it entirely. If I could have every diary that I ever started spread out in front of me, I could probably identify at the precise moment when I decided to stop each one: the moment when I made a mistake, and the feelings of fear that erupted right after.
I have always cared a great deal about how others might perceive my writing, even those whose judgements or criticisms I conjure up myself, and part of this comes from my inability to shake the feeling that I must present my ideas perfectly—that the space I take up as a writer is earned by my being scrupulous and honest, and any err in judgement could just as easily take that space away. It’s a damning perspective and one that offers very little value; it’s also an egotistical one. But all of these concerns boil down to my one inescapable truth: that I am afraid of failing and offending, and that I haven’t yet overcome this fear. “You’ve got to have not only all the talent but the self-belief,” says writer Elaine Scarry in an interview for The Paris Review. A professor of English and American Literature, Scarry’s career spans several decades and is punctuated by her relatively controversial essays about aestheticism, beauty, and torture. Most famously, too, was her claim that a series of airplane crashes in the late 90s was caused by electromagnetic interference—a theory that bordered on conspiracy and which many in the aerospace industry scoffed at, though Scarry’s claims eventually proved fruitful:
“But more interesting than whether she turns out to be right or wrong is the intellectual temperament that led Scarry to such unliterary pursuits in the first place. What is an English professor doing writing technical articles on airplane crashes? The answer, it turns out, owes nothing to a morbid streak; in fact, Scarry seems a resolutely cheerful person. Nor does it seem to be fueled by a private paranoia; despite her work on air disasters, she's a comfortable flier. Rather, it has to do with an almost alarmingly well-developed sense of civic duty.” —The New York Times
Scarry spent months researching aerospace engineering and electromagnetic interference—all because she felt it necessary to investigate those airplane crashes as part of her civic duty. And her research paid off, as many scientists and civilians were pushed to consider issues from another perspective: that of moral obligation. Scarry took a risk by writing “The Fall of TWA 800: The Possibility of Electromagnetic Interference,” and the risk ultimately served her and her career well, though I imagine the months prior to publishing such a controversial piece weren’t easy for her. I share all of this because I am trying very desperately to seek out stories and narratives that feel essential, but like all of the half-finished diaries before, I become paralyzed by the same fear that has loomed large over me for years: who am I to say anything? I am just a person.
But all of my favorite writers are just people, too, and that’s what makes their particular voices resonate so deeply. While Scarry chose to carve out a space that contends with the status quo, others like her simply share the devastations and revelations that come with being a human. Hanif Abdurraqib, for example, has published books about a myriad personal and cultural phenomena ranging in style from literary criticism to prose poetry. I feel like I am somewhere in between the two—wanting to write about the grand and urgent facts of life while also wanting to write quietly, somewhere, about the prosaic minutiae of being a person living through it all. For so long I felt that I needed to establish a cohesive repertoire that seldom strayed in voice or style, and as soon as I sensed myself heading in a different direction, I stowed away the diary altogether. But like Scarry, who has written about airplanes and war and morality, and like Abdurraqib, who has written about basketball and death and music, I don’t necessarily need to find any one thing, but several things—a diary’s worth of things—and just keep writing.
This really resonated with me! Thank you for being brave and sharing; your words always inspire me, Rachel!