Pens of Fate

And the winner of the "Diary Debates" is...

It takes Mama some time to digest that I am going to keep up writing in notebooks. Now I have several. Don't laugh, but one of them is a cookbook. I only started it because my eldest child superpowers failed to save me from Mama's disapproval of spending so much time writing. I had to do some quick thinking to sidestep her before she banned it completely. I promised her that I would note down a recipe "fairly often".

"Often shmoften," Mama says. "You'll write down five recipes every day!"

"Five? Mama, you don't make five different recipes every week, even," I say. 

"Three," Mama says.

"We are not going to bargain about this," I say, and then immediately go against myself by adding, "Once a week."

"Thrice," Mama replies.

"Twice," I say, and quickly add, "and I'll make a clothes designing diary too, OK?"

Her face lights up like the full moon on a clear night. "That's my daughter!"

I smile and say nothing, knowing that Pinterest will help me by giving me ideas from the vast collection on the website.

Mama's full-moon face dulls to half-moon brightness. "No copying from the Internet," she says. She must have understood my smile. 

"I won't wear what I design, then, because it won't be worth anything," I say. Then I hurriedly change the subject: "Do you want to see my daily planner?"

"I'm not interested in that website," Mama says. I open my mouth, about to tell her that it's actually another notebook, but I remain silent because I don't want her to get overwhelmed by the idea of all those pages calling out to me to be filled every day.

"Mama, is that the pressure cooker?" I put a hand to my ear and lean in the general direction of the kitchen.

"Let me check!" She gets up and hurries out of the room, but not before leaving a final comment. "Twice a week, remember!" 

"I'll remember," I say. I turn towards my bookshelf. Now I am faced with the hardest choice: deciding which notebook will be assigned what role. It's a serious matter. Can a plain yellow cover suitably contain a collection of recipes and too-bored-to-cook sketches, or will a more durable, hard cover diary with last year's stamp on it do the job? I have a whole collection of those rough notebooks with covers made out of food product packages. You know, cereal box cardboard living a second life as a notebook cover. A notebook advertising pizza or chocolate ice cream. That's the kind that makes your classmates ask you to turn over your notebook in the class just before lunch time, so they don't have to look at the appealing food picture on the front.

Choosing notebooks is difficult, but it's a challenge I enjoy. While I'm at it, I'll just draw a little something in this spare notepad. Something to express my thoughts while I think how to use the other notebooks.