I know you're expecting me to say that being given a diary at such an early age led to a lifetime of writing, that it became my confidant, my friend, with whom I could share my most intimate thoughts and feelings. But that's not the way it was.

Although I wrote in it faithfully, and continued to keep a diary through most of my teenage years -- until I reached an age when discretion became more important than self-expression -- no one has ever written such boring diaries. Page after page, my journals provide detailed records of kittens born and exams written, of the colds and sore throats that allowed me to stay home from school, of movies seen, gifts received and piano pieces performed, of the name of every book I ever took out of the school library.

But here and there a more interesting, if cryptic, entry appears: "Sister taught us some things about stars." "My two front teeth are decaying." "The girl I slapped at the picnic got even." "I'm not giving up candy for Lent." All of these events are recorded without emotion or explanation. Whenever I did something stupid -- like losing my signet ring, or forgetting to advance the film in my new box camera -- the only sign of the anxiety I felt is found in the words that invariably follow such mishaps: "Daddy doesn't know."

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