hermitage:

 –noun 
1. the habitation of a hermit
2. any secluded place of residence or habitation; retreat; hideaway.
3. (initial capital letter) a palace in Leningrad built by Catherine II and now used as an art museum


When I was in high school, I used to be better about carving out me-time. I did this to counteract the overachiever in me so I wouldn't go crazy. I would unplug my phone, sign off my AIM, lock my bedroom door, and curl up on my bed with a good book or a good movie. Something I affectionately called my hermitage.  It wasn't a reaction to a bad day, or teenage angst, or a fight with a friend; I just needed some time to recharge. As I've gotten older, this "recharging" has fallen by the waist-side.

I live in this constant battle with technology. I love having access to everything, but then that access becomes too much and I want to shut it all down, at least for a few hours. So today, during my lunch break, I ventured to the Grand Central branch of the NYPL, and while I was settling into my new book, Her Fearful Symmetry, I took a moment to weigh the pros and cons of indulging in something sinful: turning off my cellphone.

Pros:
No email alerts
No gchats
No text messages
No facebook notifications
No app upgrades
No interruptions


Cons:
I won't be able to check the time
What if I get an urgent work email?

I know what you're thinking, clearly the pros outweigh the cons, but it involved a heated back and forth in my head for about 10 minutes. BUT, finally, I settled on my decision:

SHUT THE DARN THING OFF!

I mean, are we destined to be badgered my our cellphones' constant tweets and chirps? If someone calls us, must we answer, every time? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Do we eat to live, or live to eat?

Ground-breaking stuff here people. Think about it. Or maybe you already took my advice and disconnected yourself......after you finished reading this post of course, don't forgo the necessities. Obviously.

Dear Diary,

When I was younger I kept many diaries. It was there that I would go to write out my frustrations and exclamations about the day. These were private "I hate it when..." or "I have a crush on..." notes that I know would never be read by others.

Unless you take one of your journals to a Girl Scout overnight at an aquarium and some, let's just say, nosy girls decide to read it (Ok. It was not the smartest idea to bring it along to the overnight, but you live, you learn.)

Now, imagine those naive, overly dramatic, pubescent entries being read by millions of people?
That is what I kept thinking when I was reading The Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel. Florence Wolfson, the original diary writer, had kept a daily account for five years in a red leather diary gifted to her when she was 14.

Some entries were full of typical teenage angst, but more often than not I would forget that I was delving into the mind of a girl. Ahead of her time, the Florence from the diary would have been at home in the 21st century. She was an artist and a writer. An independent thinker who did not worry herself with judgments from her peers. I admired her for surrendering to her desires. And it didn't hurt that the New York she described kind of reminded me of what I think Paris is like. Art and sexuality rounding every corner.

What I enjoyed the most was Florence's passion. When you're young, the world is like a blank canvas, waiting to burst with the life you choose. I don't think it's a secret that I am aspiring to be one of those artistic types (lots of fine arts classes in college, but I still can't shed my obsessive need to be organized). But I always have that nagging feeling, "Yea you like to do all of this, but are you any good at it?" I was thinking about this while envy crept in, when Lily Koppel said something that stopped me, "My feelings of uncertainty about whether I had it in me to become a writer, my striving for recognition and search for love, connected me to the young woman of the diary (pg. 277)." I felt relieved. I wasn't alone in my self-doubt.

At 14, Florence was fearlessly reaching for her dreams and succeeding. I really don't think my blubbering diary entries about my mother's injustices of the day or my boy crush of the moment were sprinkled with poignant advice or enticing sexual encounters when I was 14. I think I was still into the Spice Girls, so the only thing you might have learned from reading my diary would have been awesome lyrics or French curse words (they couldn't be Spanish my mom understood those).

Read this book, it is surprising and unique. And maybe go through your old diaries, censor what you must, because you never know who will get their hands on it and make it into a best-seller.