A Girl Named Eve

Even better than finding my diaries is reading them to my boys. I enjoy hearing them giggle and seeing them learn about my younger self, before I was their mother. I signed up for an online writing class at UCLA Extension. I fell in love with the variety of nonfiction classes they offered. It looks like they have enough online writing courses to complete the Certificate Program without ever having to visit the campus.    I’m excited and hope it goes well. I had signed up at other extension courses to smaller schools before only to find the class cancelled after months of anticipating and scheduling it in my calendar. Once I didn’t find out about the cancellation till the morning of the class. I made the best of things by doing a write-in with another lady who had shown up. We talked most of the time. We had an active weekend with a long bike ride, soccer scrimmage, and run. I missed having weekly writing classes for both the camaraderie and inspiration.

While putting away our Christmas decorations, my husband lowered my memorabilia containers from the high shelving in our garage. I wanted him to bring down the boxes because one of them contained my childhood diaries. In the first plastic bin, we found my kid's old baby outfits. They were cute colorful sleepers that brought back memories of chubby cheeks, little hands wrapped around my fingers, and long hours spent nursing and singing them to sleep. I compared the white baby shoes with bells on them to my 13 year old's big shoes as he was lying down reading. We marveled at the changes. The second box had awards, yearbooks, birthday cards, and the diaries. I wondered if there would be any good to them. Had I written any details I'd since forgotten? And would any of it be worth reading? I raised the silver diary with a red colored rose on it to my nose. That one used to smell like roses. I inhaled. It had lost its scent. I opened the diary and started reading. Streams of...