Hello, It’s Me….
Some of you have written, welcoming a new column, wondering where I’ve been keeping myself. A sweet and humbling realization that my words, this intermittent take on life, might be missed by you. It’s a delicate balance, keeping up with (and penning down) my racing thoughts, not wanting to flood mailboxes or psyches, balancing and rebalancing work and home demands. So I’ve been a bit scarce this summer.
Like a loamy fallow field awaiting just the right moment to burst forth with shoots of grain, my own interior landscape has been husbanding a bumper crop of experiences. On a long drive home, my beloved hubby at the wheel, I began unearthing a summer’s worth of thoughts and reflections. There are books to share and my brother’s and sister-in-law’s wonderful new bakery to trumpet. My first children’s picture book will be out come September but I never got around to sharing with you the trip to NYC where I first promoted it. I had the joy of being 20 again during a weekend with my college roommates and through the hospitality of a close friend and neighbor shared the slice of American history and heritage she has long enjoyed. I took a chance on a physical challenge that has left me achy and bruised but button-popping proud.
Does time now travel at light’s speed because I am busier, or older or both? Showing up here affords me a place to meander, a place to reach out, a little lopin de terre* (or small corner of earth) to root around in — alone here at my desk and also in your good company.
I don’t want you to feel pestered with reminders of new posts so here’s what I’ve set up. For the next two to three weeks there will be a new post each Tuesday and Friday. Subscribers to the blog will receive that automatic reminder of new fare to read. For those used to getting notice when a new post is up, this is your notice.(Hint: subscribe and be the first on your block to read the new ones!) Tune in and enjoy at will. Salut!
*I first read this phrase in middle school in Betty Smith’s Joy in the Morning. Don’t know why it stuck but I’ve never been able to use it anywhere. Wonderful book by the author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
The above photo is courtesy of writer and poet Elizabeth Adams whose blog The Cassandra Pages is wonderful and rich for tilling. Thank you, Beth, for the perfect photo.