When Diaries Die

Where do diaries go when they die?  My notebook has expired.  It's life of pages fully filled with this and that.  I call it a "notebook" although obviously it is more than that, so many things in fact that I have to go with the lowest common denominator.  It has been my diary, journal, sketch-pad, doodle-book, poem book, puzzle-book and general thought catcher for both my left and right brains.  Filled with failed attempts at capturing the beauty of women in magazines, my first ever completed sudoku (both attempts at it), my collection of useless change, images that inspired me, unfinished and un-published draft blog entries, the beginnings of un-ending stories and even a particularly bad hang-over.

 

So what is it's next state of existence?  Now that I can no longer write or draw or think in it.  I have a fantasy of leaving it behind on a park-bench somewhere for some stranger to find and glimpse into my soul.  After all, what is the point of "art" if it is not seen, or writing if it is not read?  But then would this person be able to decipher my spidery scrawl or appreciate my poor sketches?  And what if they just threw it away, or it may get wet in the rainy British summer and decay and decompose before it's time. 

 

You hear of people auctioning their worthless personal possessions on eBay - old smelly socks or knickers - maybe I could auction off my notebook to the highest bidder.  But what price can I put on my thoughts?  What if the bidder believes that in winning the book they have also won ownership of the ideas within the book?  Of my thoughts and not just their physical representations.

 

Or I could just keep it, for future reference.  Some sort of higgledy-piggledy record of "me" between the dates on the first and last pages.  I could look back one day when I've learnt how to draw properly and see how bad I was; when I've perfected writing and see my poorest attempts; when my mind is clearer and see how muddled it was; when my life is fuller and see how empty it was.

 

I'm caught between my natural instinct to keep and to own what is, maybe more than any of my other possessions, "mine", or to pass it on to some stranger just to share something of myself with a small piece of the world.