itsy bitsy

I’ve been putting off posting because I’m not sure where to start. How can I write a post that even begins to be good enough to measure up to the blog of my imagination? Why do I want to do this thing at all? How to begin?

In my mind, this is a place where I share ideas about a range of themes, with pictures. This will be a blog about process and progress – about how the two fit together. I believe that writing about it will be useful to me. It will give a discipline to the sometimes random looking things I am currently doing. It will give a home to my voice. It will allow me to share my thoughts and ideas and create a community around them. This blog will be a resting place for the slow accrual of a thousand tender moments that embody my existence.

Somewhere in a notebook I wrote about how I feel like I cannot begin because I am not already done. I feel as if I have to know where I am heading before I begin the journey. But what if I’m wrong about that? Maybe I’m allowed to wander. And the fact is, I am a work in progress. The more I know that, the more I accomplish. Perhaps my time could be better spent elsewhere, but just now I have no idea where that would be. Maybe this blog can be my own meandering discovery of the better way to fill my time.

I see dead blogs left and right. Things I have bookmarked with the idea to come back to, only to discover they closed up shop over a year ago. I am afraid from the outset, that this will happen to me. But there is something common to all those blogs: they stopped being meaningful to the authors who went on to other projects that were closer to their hearts. Change is allowed and knowing when change needs to happen, giving it permission, is one of the primary routes to success.

I think this project can help me to lead an intentional life. That is the postulate. And I am willing to do the experiment – to see if it works. My research has shown that simply showing up – compassionately and with acceptance of who I am and what I am feeling – is a universal solvent that helps things to flow. If I commit to showing up, I am sure I will end up somewhere else, where everything will seem much clearer.

While it is true I may not continue and the whole thing might be a bust – I might never get around to posting, I might never have any readers, my writing could be bland and dull, or so provocative that everyone on the internet hates me – if these were not possibilities, then this would not be a true experiment.

All I can do is commit to the test and observe the results. [Maybe a quarterly review, where I post my data and analyze the results - a point in time to recommit or adjust the parameters - is in order?]

I can’t promise that I will be witty or interesting. I would like to be, but I might not be able to pull it off. And who knows about being insightful? How can you even tell?

I can tell you this much, right now: I am making a commitment to show up here, to put things for you to read and to see. To open a window to my process. Because time and time again, throughout my life, I have seen that when you just show up to live your own life, things happen. That will be my definition of success.