It has been a little over one year, to the day, since I last wrote on this blog. At the time, I thought I would venture out and begin something new... which I tried. And which became like a bad taste in my mouth and basically waned into nothingness. Writing for me is integral, but something I often have to work very hard at - and I know those two facts are contradictions. They swat at each other all day long. I hate to write... I love to write. I must write... I will never write again. I am temperamental, a flux of emotion and frustration and passion and, therefore, sometimes good for nothing whatsoever. But, the compulsion to write came upon me today, and while I have this other new blog set up, it annoys me and feels stupid and silly. When I came back here, just to browse, I found that it no longer bore the weight for me as it once had; it didn't feel like the black mourning band around my arm that a year ago it seemed to be. "I read the words/ Well - those sound right/ I see a face/ It's me!/ Why did I leave this lovely place?/ Where else but should I be?"
And so I am back.
Now, it is an impetus for me to write - not as much for you to read. So, if you are reading this, and find it very dull, don't feel the obligation to stick around and read anymore. I cannot promise it won't get duller. Sometimes, my fear of being dull has kept me from this place. And I fear that my monotony in life - or, if I'm honest, my peace - will make me a drudgery. Happiness has its numbing effects. As Emily Dickinson wrote, "I can wade grief/ Whole pools of it - /I'm used to that./ But the least push of joy/ Breaks up my feet,/ And I tip - drunken." It's in trial that so often we become sharply aware of everything - awakened to the richness and poverty around us, able to articulate with greater clarity what we feel and need and hope and grieve and pine for. But with happiness - in simple stillness - there sometimes grows stagnation. Perhaps I have grown stagnant. I hope not. But if I have, well - I suppose few will linger on to see much of it.
