An excerpt from the blog of Debora Cahn

A word about diaries.  When you find your mother’s diary, don’t read it.  DON’T READ IT.  I tell you this from experience.  I found my mother’s diary.  Not really a diary, a suitcase full of stuff she wrote for a writing class, but one of the assignments was to keep a journal, and my sister said DON’T READ IT and I read it, and I’m telling you.  DO NOT READ THE DIARY.  If they thought you should know, they’d have told you. But more importantly, I say this to the diary keepers of the world:  What the hell are you thinking?  You really think nobody’s gonna find that thing?  You really think that the box in the back of the closet is a secure location?  That an old sweater and a pair of long underwear’ll throw everyone off the trail?  You’re dead, and your poor child/spouse/best friend is tasked with going through your stuff, and they see the box with the sweater and the long underwear, and they think, I’m not going to touch that pair of long underwear, it’s clearly a box of old winter clothing, let’s just close it up again and bring it right over to Goodwill.  No, people.  Anyone who hasn’t had a lobotomy is going to move the long underwear aside, and find the diary, and read it.  And let me tell you, that little tiny lock can be picked with a bobby pin.  If you feel you must put your feelings on paper, destroy those pages once a year.  If you feel you must have a way to reconnect with your younger self, run the bonfire once a decade.  And when you find yourself visiting an oncologist or cardiologist with some regularity, take it as a sign to THROW OUT THE DIARIES. 

Always Love

To make a mountain of your life Is just a choice 
But I never learned enough 
To listen to the voice that said
Always love; Hate will get you every time
Always love; Don't wait til the finish line

Slow demands come around 
Squeeze the air and keep the rest out 
It helps to write it down
Even if you then cross it out 

Self-directed lives 
I want to know what it'd be like to 
Aim so high above 
Any card that you get dealt you 

I've been held back by something 
You said to me quietly on the stairs, 
I've been held back by something 
You said to me quietly on the stairs
You said 
Hey, you good ones
Hey, you good ones

Always Love 
Hate will get you every time 
Always love 
Hate will get you

First Day on a Brand New Planet

"Most of our life is a series of images. They pass us by like towns on the highway. But sometimes a moment stuns us as it happens. And we know that this instant is more than a fleeting image. We know that this moment, every part of it, will live on forever."