A friend muttered an under-the-breath comment the other day about the infrequent nature of my writing. That part I know of myself, that trait I don’t like very much, and that I try to press down under the water so that people can’t see the struggle’s splashes, was ushered right up to the surface for a big ol’ gulp of fresh air. It stung more than I thought it should. I suppose you could say that I’m in that “do I live my life or write about it?” stage these days, so it didn’t come as a surprise. I notice things like the bright orange yolks in the eggs I have for breakfast, like the sturdy little beginnings of trees that are springing up from the whirlybirds that fell from my maple tree into the soil around my strawberries, like the heady scent of honeysuckle and the lush, damp green that is closing in on my peripheries and around my little back yard that marks the onset of summer, then I think “I should probably write about that.” But I end up just enjoying those little things in real time and then forgetting that I ever intended to put words to them.
Herein lies my own ever-rolling cycle. I know I’m fickle. I know I’m inconstant. The struggle stems from a desire to please, if I had to put a fine point on it. I hate to disappoint. Do I write something that’s not good at all just so that I can say that I wrote something? Or do I not put anything out there until it’s perfect? It’s all pressure I put on myself, I understand this fully. I sure do wonder who reads all this stuff, though, and it begs the question: who do I write for? A dear friend put that question to me a while back and I didn’t know the answer. I wasn’t able to put a finger on who my audience is, and yet I write. They’re all in the mix: friends, family (near and far), total strangers, folks who want to know what I’m cooking on a given day, old flames, hoped-for flames, my dear mom, distant Swedish relatives. Me. Me? Me.
When my sister and I embarked on this blog-a-day journey, I don’t think we realized how mundane it would get. I think we live quietly extraordinary lives here, but it was starting to seem otherwise. I think we need to give ourselves a bit of freedom. I’ll keep telling myself that a well-edited tome need not be cranked out each day, and the task will surely take on a lighter, friendlier tone. So I’ll post, not worrying about who is catching all of my sure genius. Dear reader, get ready for a little bit of abstract nonsense from time to time.