Some changes

This September will mark seven years of blogging for me.  I love writing here.  To say it has had a substantial impact on the way I live my life is an understatement.  Blogging has introduced me to a community of writers I’d never imagined meeting, brought me back to the person who loves to write, who I’d lost for many years, and reminded me in a visceral way that my life is right here in front of me, and if I don’t pay attention I’ll miss it.

It’s time for a small change.  Starting next week I’m going to blog three times a week.  Mostly this is because I’m worried I’m repeating myself.  A couple of years ago I noted that Joni Mitchell’s Circle Game could easily be the theme song of my life.  “Captive on a carousel of time” might have been a more apt (though more trademarked) name for this blog.  I feel like the circles are getting smaller, and I am becoming boring.  I told Matt about this change, and he asked why, and I said “because I think I’m repeating myself.”  Without hesitation, he said, “Yes, that’s probably true.”  Oh-kay.  There you have it.

Writing here has certainly made clear the central leitmotifs of my life: mourning the passage of time, the mysterious nature of memory, my dogged but imperfect attempts to be here now, and the reality that life is flawed and messy, grand and golden, and that it is impossible (for me) to have light without dark.

It is inexpressibly valuable to have clarity about what those themes are.  I understand now, and I did not before, the ways that these spots around which my soul pivots have defined my comings and goings and my feeling and thinking.

But I don’t want to just say the same thing over and over again.  I can’t possibly explain how much it means to me that anyone at all is reading my words; honestly, that is a gift beyond measure.  Thank you.  I know it’s awfully meta to blog about blogging.  I won’t do it again, but I just wanted to explain the change in cadence here that will start next week.

And to say thank you.