In The Beginning

About ten years ago a friend suggested I start a blog/a weblog and I thought, “Why on earth would I want to do that, to talk at people? How rude,” I thought. And now here we are. A new decade, fresh at the start, and a blahg now seems like a good way to spare my family and friends the ten page missives I was flinging at them through the air. Apparently I do like to talk at people! Who knew? My preference is still dialogue, which is why I respond to myself. How about you?

Facebook is for Scrabble and looking at people’s photo albums. It is hard for me to not start each status update with, “”Oh come now, who on fb isn’t thinking me, me, me, me, me I, I, I, I, I.”

So here I greet you on a frosty morning in the suburbs of the world. New Jersey where I look over a frozen pond which yesterday was covered in skaters and today rests idly in the sun. Winter light blasts through the window, illuminating a crystal I had forgotten was there, and casting dizzying rainbows all over the wall in front of me.
The mate has left for a new job. Here we go.

Isn’t coffee a dream? Apparently my mate brewed a new pot and then ran off with it, but how can I blame him? One needs such a fortifying friend for the wee hours of the frigid morning. I try to coerce the cat to join me. In his sleigh the mate will likely be listening to Rebecca, the Daphne Du Maurier classic which irks him with its lily-livered main character as much as it thrills him with its atmospheric language. When we were rushing about on a brief stop at the library neither of us could think of the author of Fahrenheit 451 (We no longer have access to our own brains. What we cannot think of scares us.) and so he is finishing Rebecca before he moves on to Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Red Badge of Courage. He now refers to listening as “reading.”

So this is just forming. It’s two cells, me and you. And you may even be imaginary!
Let’s see what we have in nine months. Or what kicks us in the belly or causes our heart to flutter in the meantime. Elephants and angels all.

Let us praise small things. Today, coffee, sunlight, warmth, and libraries. Also new jobs, bosses who communicate and advocate, and the utter convenience of email. Any day we are not in pain. Or moment. Our friends. You.