The Twinkle

Summer 1955

Malibu, CA

Ana, Age 10

Dear Diary,

My name is Ana, I am 10, I have red hair and freckles that I hate. My favorite color is pink, even though Grandma says it makes my freckles stand out. My birthday is February 2nd, and it’s always too cold to have a party. I have a party for my half birthday instead, August 2nd, at Grandma’s summer cottage in California.

Usually the party is just my parents and grandparents and brother Nate and sister Karen, but it’s still fun because I get to pick a cake and I get presents and am allowed to swim in the ocean until I turn into a prune. I don’t really turn into a prune, but my fingers and toes get purple and wrinkled. 

Yesterday was my tenth birthday party, and it was my favorite one yet because Mother gave me this pretty pink pretend-leather diary with the real lock and teeny tiny key, and also because I met Alexander Mason Brown. (I hope I spelled his name right, names are hard!)

Diary, I am in love with Alexander Mason Brown. He is my soulmate, I am 1000000 percent sure of it. He has black hair and blue blue blue eyes and he was at my party because Grandma is summer friends with his grandma, and he stays with his grandparents in the summer, just like I do. Grandma invited him to my party because she learned that he is the same age as me and thought he might have fun playing with some other kids, since I guess he doesn’t have any brothers or sisters.

He didn’t really talk that much at my party, but he gave me a card he drew himself, and a seashell big enough to fill up my whole entire palm. He played tag with me and Nate and Karen on the beach, and when he was It he almost caught me, but let me get away, which was so nice. 

Before he left he said happy birthday Ana, i like your freckles and I think that was when I fell in love. I have been begging Grandma to talk to his grandma about letting him come over to play again, but she told me that he is leaving in a week, and might not be able to. I think he will be here next summer though. I hope so.

I learned about love last year in school, when Miss Delaney separated the boys and the girls and told us that we might start getting crushes on boys, and we aren’t supposed to hold their hands, because we have to wait for our true loves. Miss Delaney said we will know when we find our true love because our hearts will beat super fast, and our faces will get hot and we will see stars when we are next to them.

She told us we won’t find our true loves until we are grown ups, and so I am very surprised that Alexander Mason Brown is mine. When he gave me the pretty shell I saw little stars, and when he smiled at me after I blew out my birthday candles my face got so hot I thought maybe one of the candles had burned me. Also, when I tagged him on the beach, it felt like my heart jumped all the way up to my throat, and started beating so hard I couldn’t swallow again for soooo long afterward.

Anyway. I am in love. I wonder if I should tell Miss Delaney in the fall that she was wrong. That might make her upset though, so maybe I will keep this a secret. Well, I’ve already told Grandma and Mother and Karen, although only Karen believed me. And she just said ew gross boys are smelly. She’s only seven, so I didn’t really expect her to understand.

My hand hurts from all this writing, so I’m going to stop for now. Maybe I’ll leave this diary here at Grandma’s beach house so that next time I write in it, hopefully I will have gotten to play with Alexander again. Maybe he’ll love me by then too.

Love,

Ana

P.S.

I forgot to mention that he also shook my hand when he met me, like an adult. His hands were very clean.

-Ana

Summer 1958

Malibu, CA

Ana, Age 13

Dear Diary!

I just found this cute little diary that I think I got for my tenth birthday. Lately I’ve been getting interested in keeping a journal, but I left mine at home, so it was totally perfect when I found this in my room here, under Karen’s bed. I bet she read it, since the key was sticking out of the little lock. (I’m going to have to keep that in my panty drawer from now on. I swear my sister is the absolute worst.) 

Anyway, I had almost completely forgotten about Alexander Mason Brown until I read the last (and only entry) in this diary a few days ago, when I found it under the bed. I was obsessed with him all the rest of the summer, and for about half the school year too. Until I became obsessed with Evan Newby, like all the other 5th grade girls. But I still thought about Alexander, and Evan definitely wasn’t as cute. 

So after I read the first entry I asked Grandma if she was still friends with Mrs. Brown, and she said she was, and that in fact she had just played bridge with her and she had mentioned that her grandson was visiting for the summer for the first time in a few years.

Grandma said do you remember when you were so sweet on little Alexander Brown when you were ten? and I got so embarrassed because I am a teenager now, and way more mature than I was when I was ten. I told Grandma no that never happened but since this is a private diary I can admit here that I thought about Alexander’s black hair and twinkly blue eyes for the rest of that night.

The next day, Grandma came back from the supermarket and when I went to go to the car to help her with the groceries, Alexander Mason Brown hopped out of the front seat. He is so tall and his voice is deep like a man’s almost! and his hands are twice the size of mine. His eyes were still twinkly and his hair was still black, and it was all long over his ears.

I could barely say a word to Alexander all throughout lunch, and all I could think about the whole time was how I was wearing PINK which I know Grandma says makes me look like a salmon filet. After lunch Alexander asked if I wanted to go look for shells, and of course Karen had to tag along. 

Alexander and I talked a little bit about our schools but Karen kept jabbering on and on about the shells she was finding, and I swear I was literally about to push her in the ocean when she finally announced she was thirsty and headed back to the house for lemonade.

I am blushing so hard recounting this-and I take it back- I’m going to have to wear this key around my neck instead of putting it in my panty drawer, because I would absolutely perish if Karen ever found this. 

Anyway, as soon as I left Alexander said you’re really cute, Ana, I still really like your freckles and then he tucked his hands behind his back and kissed me on the lips. I was so stunned I just stood there, and when I didn’t say anything for the longest time he said i’m so sorry, that was rude. Oh diary, why! I should have said no! it wasn’t rude, i think you’re cute too. And then I could have kissed him like the girls in the books, and we could have held hands. (Mrs. Delaney from 5th grade was so wrong about everyone waiting until they are adults to fall in love and hold hands by the way, even though I haven’t yet at least five girls in my grade have had boyfriends by now and held hands in the hallways and at lunch). Instead I just said it’s okay, and turned away from him to pick up a shell because I was blushing so hard I was sure I looked just like a piece of uncooked salmon, and it might repulse him to look at me for too long.

By the time I worked up the nerve to look up from the shell, Alexander Mason Brown was headed down the beach, his hands buried in his pockets. I am so so stupid, I can’t believe I let him think that I didn’t want him to kiss me. I cried all last night, and I feel like I’m going to cry again today writing this, from embarrassment and disappointment and heartbreak. 

I am probably the youngest girl in the world to have already fallen in love with the same boy twice, and had her heartbroken too. And it’s my fault, which makes it so much worse. Goodbye, Alexander Mason Brown, I will always love you.

-Signing off with tears,

Ana

Summer 1965

Malibu, CA

Ana, Aged 20

Dear Diary,

I am laughing aloud as I write this, feeling nostalgic and poetic and like the main character in a film! I’m writing this down on the beach, by a little bonfire that Karen and I built a few hours ago. She has gone up to bed, pleading a headache as an excuse. More likely she just wants to smoke some of the joint I know she got from the shaggy haired lifeguard at the pool earlier today. I don’t know why she thinks she has to hide it from me, I suppose that because I go to Harvard for journalism and have a bob and wear a one piece swimsuit she thinks that I would disapprove. It’s true that I’ve never smoked marijuana before, but I have drunk alcohol on many occasions, which should count for something. Once I drank so much I passed out at a party, and I woke up on a stranger’s couch. I don’t know why I’m bragging about that here, I suppose there is something about writing in one’s childhood diary that makes them girlish and sillyheaded.

I just reread that last line. Maybe I do understand why Karen thought I would disapprove of the marijuana joint. 

So, back to my reason for writing this! I found this journal when Karen and I were cleaning out Grandma’s beach house yesterday. Yes, there is sad news. Karen and I are here to clean Grandma’s summer home because Mother is selling it since Grandma has dementia now, and lives in an assisted living facility. 

It’s been bittersweet; this summer house is filled with so many memories that are joyful to relive, and it’s also heartbreaking to know this is my last few nights sleeping in the twin bed next to the window that overlooks the sand dunes; the last mornings I will crawl bleary from bed to watch the sunrise. 

And still that is not why I have decided to unlock this little diary! Since we have the whole summer to clean the house,  I admit to you I have been enjoying a dalliance with the boy who works at the little bakery where Karen and I have been going to get fresh croissants in the mornings after sunrise. He wears a shell necklace and has long hair, and I’m sure he smokes marijuana joints just like Karen and her lifeguard. 

I was attracted to his eyes first, because they are almost the exact blue of the ocean on a perfectly clear day, and they twinkle like the sun reflecting on the waves. (I’ve reread my past entries, and I can’t help but think that maybe I find my baker boy so attractive because he reminds me of Alexander Mason Brown, my ill fated preteen almost-sweetheart.) 

Anyway! Back to my baker boy whose eyes twinkle like my first crush. (I refuse to accept that I actually loved Alexander, I am too young now to be in love, much less when I was ten!)

Baker boy took me for a moonlight bike ride on the beach, and we kissed on the sand dunes. It felt like a film, just like right now does, and the memories make me feel pleasantly warm inside. I let him pull down my swimsuit straps, and afterwards we used his key to sneak into the bakery and he made me fresh cinnamon rolls. It felt illegal and thrilling, and the worst part is that I have a boyfriend back at Harvard! Kyle Simmons, with his cleft chin and career goals and aftershave scent. He’ll never know though, since he wouldn’t dream I would do something like this. Honestly, neither would I. I blame the twinkling eyes. 

Guiltily,

Ana

P.S.

I think I’ll take this journal. Who knows if I’ll write in it again, but it has too many secrets to not keep.

-Ana

Summer 1967

Oregon Coast

Ana, Age 22

Dear fucking diary,

I was the most shallow, silly girl ever last time I wrote! I have no choice but to make a new entry for this announcement: I am sexually liberated! Free from the stigma of ladylikeness! I am a fully fledged woman and I will fuck whoever I like! I should have fucked Alexander Mason Brown! I definitely should have fucked baker boy! I should NOT have fucked stupid WASP Kyle Simmons. 

I would like to announce that love is just primal, feminine lust, and I have fallen fully in LUST with Gracen P this summer of my twenty-second year, and second summer of liberation. He grows marijuana in his parents basement, and he has the twinkliest green eyes. Once upon a time I may have said I loved him. But I am liberated!!! 

-Wildly,

Ana!!!!

Summer 1969

Old Orchard Beach, Maine

Ana, Age 24

Dear Diary,

I am writing to announce that I am getting married in one week, on this beautiful beach. I am marrying Kyle Simmons. My dress is going to be white and my veil was Grandma’s. I am writing this because I am a bit wine drunk and embarrassed at my last entry. Kyle is wonderful, and our life together will be perfect. I bet we will have five children and live in a lovely white house. For the record, for 22 and 20 and 13 and 10 year old Ana: I really am in love, and his eyes don’t sparkle, but he has the nicest smile I have ever seen and such a good head on his shoulders. Twinkly eyes are dangerous.

-For the last time, because this is my true love,

Ana

Summer 2017

Malibu Beach

Ana, Age 72

Dearest Old Diary,

I am just what you might expect- a silly old woman sitting on the front porch of a little beach house, writing in a faded pink diary with a little gold lock that she got when she was a little girl, and has somehow not lost over the years.

Perhaps it is because my heart is in these pages, however few have been used, and one does not part with their heart easily. 

I think the Ana who lives in these pages would have wanted to know how it turned out, so here goes, before I leave this diary under the twin bed in the upstairs room of this little old rental that I used to come here decades ago, when it belonged to my long departed Grandmother, back when she was younger than I am now.  

For ten year old Ana: you can fall in love at any age, and sometimes it is best to trust the heart when it is new, before the world has had the chance to settle in.

For thirteen year old Ana: chase him down the beach, but if you can’t, then trust it is just because the time isn’t right, and time lasts for a very long time.

For twenty year old Ana: it’s okay to do the wrong thing sometimes, but make sure that at the end of the day, you can look yourself in the soul and be proud of what you see. Although sometimes you have to do the wrong thing, to realize you have never really been right. 

For twenty-two year old Ana: you will have a lot of sex in your life. It will be with one person for 48 years, until that person dies besides you. You will not love this person, or lust for this person, for 47 of those years. Liberation will have to come from within.

For twenty-four year old Ana: there wasn’t a twinkle, you foolish, wonderful woman. You should have waited for the twinkle, although if you had, maybe you wouldn’t have your four wonderful children, and your six beautiful grandbabies now, all the mirrors that reflect your own love back to you tenfold. You foolish, wonderful woman, all their eyes twinkle, although his didn’t. Did you make the right choice? The riddle will never be solved, but you are too old for riddles now, so you have made peace with the love you weren’t given, and all the love you were lucky enough to create. 

For seventy-two year old Ana: put down your pen and go walk on the beach with the old man you met yesterday, fishing off the pier. Your husband is dead, and so is his wife. You are both wrinkled and silver and slow as the tide without the moon. Walk with this man, he isn’t a stranger. He has blue eyes that twinkle like diamonds, and once upon a time, he stole your first kiss. 

-Love,

Ana