friday reflections
december 11, 2020
Friends, I’ve been debating for some time now if I should shutter the blog, try something new, switch to a newsletter, switch to nothing. Blogs seem… outdated these days. People have moved on. And maybe I should too but I don’t feel ready to do that just yet.
I’ve been alone at a writer’s cabin on Whidbey Island for the past few days and I spent some time today thinking about the blog and what to do with it. When I started it, I wanted this to be a space to record things. Photos mostly, I thought. And maybe some writing here or there.
When people ask me “what do you do?” I say now that I’m a writer. I write things. And that started here, on the blog. This is where I found myself. This is where I discovered that I’m a writer. So maybe it’s nostalgia or maybe it’s simply that I’m sort of lonely tonight at this cabin in the woods but I’m not quite ready to let the space go. But I also don’t want it to languish, unused.
I’ve decided that I’d like to go back to the beginning, so to speak. To let this be a place to record things. To chart some of the paths of my life – whether it be in photos or book reviews or podcast recommendations. No rules, really. Just a recording of life. For myself, mainly. And also for you, reader. Maybe you’ll find that some of your paths intersect in places with mine and we can greet each other in those spaces.
For this week’s reflection, I have two things:
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First, this tree that I saw on a walk in the woods today. Check this thing out:
Can you see that loop? From the other side of the tree, you can see that the tree broke at some point, or fell, but then somehow… it looped itself around and started growing upward again! How crazy is that? Maybe it’s not crazy, maybe trees do this all the time, I don’t know.
I won’t wax poetic and say something sappy or saccharine about resilience or reaching for the light. Nobody wants me to do that. But that tree! Wow.
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Second: we had good news today. A vaccine has been approved. Another marvel. I know that we have a long way to go and things are still quite dire. I know that it will still be many months before the longed-for outcome of a vaccine is a felt reality. But it’s still cause for rejoicing.
I’m also thinking about whether or not I’m ready for it. Not in the health / people-are-dying sense. I know that we are beyond being ready in that sense. I mean in the “am I ready to carry the things I’ve learned” sense. I’ve learned some things about myself during the pandemic and I’m not sure they are solid enough yet for me to carry out into the world.
Those are my thoughts as I close out this Friday. I’m ready to go home. I’m ready to see my fam. I came, I rested, I wrote, and now I’m ready to get the heck out of here. Also, I’m pretty hungry. I didn’t bring enough food and I don’t like grocery shopping. Until next week.