Whether the pink diary with gold lettering that I received for my eighth birthday, the brown leather journal in which I compiled teenage angst, pages I filled as a young mother with a growing child, computer files brimming with memoirs, or commonplace books abounding with quotes of favorite ideas or authors, journals have always been an essential part of my life.
As a child, I remember clutching my cat and retreating to my tiny walk-in closet to pull my writing partner from my trunk. I needed to confide to my diary that I had overheard that my mommy was ill and I was scared. I needed the cat and the diary often that year—they never failed to listen.
Decades later, I inherited another trunk, an old and battered one filled with family photographs, documents, and personal items. Inside, I found a book of family history reaching back to Plymouth Colony, England, and beyond; my great-grandfather had written that treasure for me. Notes
