Ellen Outside the Lines

Ellen’s dot diary is a symbol of her need for control and predictability in her life, but as her approach to her diary shifts along with her experiences in Barcelona, the diary eventually becomes a symbol of her new willingness to work on Accepting the Unpredictability of Life. At first, Ellen uses the dot diary to categorize and understand everything around her, including people, places, things, and experiences. It is a way for her to plan out her life and to reflect on her past while making her future experiences as predictable as possible. When the trip to Barcelona begins, Ellen is instantly confronted by a myriad of changes and surprises that she did not plan for, and this dynamic challenges her ability to adapt and adjust. As she states, “My dot diary can’t help me anymore now that this new version of our trip has officially started” (74). She starts to see that she will never be able to plan or predict everything, and this is especially true of the people she meets. In her diary, Ellen has always had a category for boys and a category for girls, but Isa challenges that binary notion, and Ellen has to create a new category for her new friend. Similarly, Ellen stops using her diary to plan for the future; instead, she uses it to remember all of her wonderful experiences. By the time the trip ends, Ellen realizes that predicting the future is both impossible and unnecessary, for as long as she works on Finding Belonging Among Friends, her tomorrows will always be filled with beauty.

Judaism is a key motif that is used to emphasize Ellen’s connection to her family, and its practices also highlight the importance of maintaining key traditions amidst an unpredictable world. Ellen’s Jewish traditions keep her grounded and help her to maintain a close bond with her parents, and they also provide her with something that is unchanging, predictable, and reliable. Ellen and her parents often speak to each other in Hebrew, and they attend Temple every week. While Ellen and her abba are away, they call home to have Shabbat and sing with Ellen’s mother. The experience makes Ellen feel at home, as though she is safe and cozy among familiar people and things. As she says, “The song feels like a big, warm hug with me wrapped in the middle between Abba and Mom” (192). When Ellen finds out that her father has not been eating kosher food in Barcelona, it upsets her at first, because she always saw her abba a certain way. However, when Abba explains that he approaches Judaism differently from Ellen and her mother, and that it is okay for different people to have different approaches, Ellen must adjust her understanding of what her religion means and how her abba’s practices relate to Embracing Self-Discovery and Freedom of Expression. She believes it is wonderful that there are so many different approaches to the same topic, and she hopes that she can find clarity in her own life regarding her own identity.