I’ve been neglecting my blog.
There, I said it.
But the snow is gone, the days are growing longer, and today, I feel that rush of optimism that comes with the promise of Spring. The time is right. Besides, neglecting my blog tends to lead to a sort of listless haunting of the house where I find myself wandering from room to room, picking things up and putting them down again. This is followed by a kind of low-grade irritability, and, then ultimately, BBQ Fritos.
I’ve thought often of my blog over the last couple of months. And there are lots of excuses not to write: family time, studies, socializing, work. But the real truth is that it takes a lot of energy to be “that person”, the one who writes my blog. The writer of my blog has a particular voice to which I must adhere. And writing—even this kind of writing—demands discipline and focus.
I have always been a writer of sorts. (That is not to say that I am a real writer, the kind who is possessed of a kind of hunger to put pen to paper.) But I have never been particularly consistent. There were essays and letters home from abroad and, of course, a journal. My journal was a loyal friend, a stoic repository for stormy ramblings. But later it was painful to re-read those raw unedited entries and so I spent an entire summer afternoon in the 80s systematically burning even my earliest childhood diaries. I watched with a hint of nostalgia as the flames quietly engulfed my words, pages folding in on themselves, disintegrating into ash and curling up the chimney in twists of grey smoke.
With my blog, I suppose I have abandoned that kind of reality in favour of something different and perhaps a little broader. And that takes work. But I’m up for it.
BBQ Fritos and all.
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