OK, dear blog.
When I was a kid, the big thing was for a young lady (now we think of them as "tweens") to have a diary. I'm reasonably certain this was a carryover from previous generations, when young women were meant to stay at home under the care of their father until a gentleman chose her, and a diary was a way to pour out one's deepest secrets without fear of anyone overhearing and judging. Now, people pour out their deepest secrets to the whole world via social media, and then get upset because their privacy has been violated. How times have changed.
So don't expect to read any deep secrets here, but I do enjoy writing to get the weird thoughts out of my head. I don't really care if anyone else reads what I write, and less if they agree. Everyone has their own experience, has come to their own conclusions, and I'm more than happy to hear someone else's perspective, with which I may agree, or not.
My grandmother kept a diary. Or rather several. When she filled one, she would start another. She would record the weather, who came to visit, or community events, births and weddings and deaths. It held virtually no inner thoughts, let alone deep secrets. The diary I kept when I was a teenager was practically empty. There was no way I was going to risk writing anything down that I might be held accountable for later, just in case anyone ever found it.
Over the years, diaries turned into journals, and keeping a journal was "discovered" to have great mental health benefits. Ya. Then along came the web, and logging your life, web log became blog. And I finally figured out what a great tool this is to, well, get the weird stuff out of my head. Which is what young women used to do with their diaries, and psychologists encouraged their patients to do with their journals. Except that if you look at enough blogs, you'll see that weird is relative - almost nothing is weird because almost everything is, and there really isn't any such thing as normal. But what do I know? Just spouting random thoughts, getting them out of my head so I can focus on other things. The difference between a blog and a diary? I can type faster than I can write, almost as fast as the thoughts come into my head. My pen could never keep up.
So, in a couple of days, I can once again get out the Peter Pan Getaway boots. Road trip! Chicago this time. Can't wait, even though it's only for a long weekend. It's wonderful to have amazing and generous friends who invite me to stay with them, and ride on the tall ship. Linda (New Zealand Linda) is coming along and we are all singing friends, so what better way to spend a few days than singing, traveling, taking amazing photographs of places I've never been and things I've never seen, sharing time with wonderful and beautiful people, and who knows, maybe the weird stuff will get replaced with cool stuff.
When I was a kid, the big thing was for a young lady (now we think of them as "tweens") to have a diary. I'm reasonably certain this was a carryover from previous generations, when young women were meant to stay at home under the care of their father until a gentleman chose her, and a diary was a way to pour out one's deepest secrets without fear of anyone overhearing and judging. Now, people pour out their deepest secrets to the whole world via social media, and then get upset because their privacy has been violated. How times have changed.
So don't expect to read any deep secrets here, but I do enjoy writing to get the weird thoughts out of my head. I don't really care if anyone else reads what I write, and less if they agree. Everyone has their own experience, has come to their own conclusions, and I'm more than happy to hear someone else's perspective, with which I may agree, or not.
My grandmother kept a diary. Or rather several. When she filled one, she would start another. She would record the weather, who came to visit, or community events, births and weddings and deaths. It held virtually no inner thoughts, let alone deep secrets. The diary I kept when I was a teenager was practically empty. There was no way I was going to risk writing anything down that I might be held accountable for later, just in case anyone ever found it.
Over the years, diaries turned into journals, and keeping a journal was "discovered" to have great mental health benefits. Ya. Then along came the web, and logging your life, web log became blog. And I finally figured out what a great tool this is to, well, get the weird stuff out of my head. Which is what young women used to do with their diaries, and psychologists encouraged their patients to do with their journals. Except that if you look at enough blogs, you'll see that weird is relative - almost nothing is weird because almost everything is, and there really isn't any such thing as normal. But what do I know? Just spouting random thoughts, getting them out of my head so I can focus on other things. The difference between a blog and a diary? I can type faster than I can write, almost as fast as the thoughts come into my head. My pen could never keep up.
So, in a couple of days, I can once again get out the Peter Pan Getaway boots. Road trip! Chicago this time. Can't wait, even though it's only for a long weekend. It's wonderful to have amazing and generous friends who invite me to stay with them, and ride on the tall ship. Linda (New Zealand Linda) is coming along and we are all singing friends, so what better way to spend a few days than singing, traveling, taking amazing photographs of places I've never been and things I've never seen, sharing time with wonderful and beautiful people, and who knows, maybe the weird stuff will get replaced with cool stuff.
