Why this blog

This blog will be thirteen years old in 2019. No wonder it's been a little confused, surly and quiet around here lately. At a writing workshop this weekend, I mentioned it to a mentor who pushes me to grow in ways I didn't know I needed. 

She was full of questions I'd never fully considered: Why is it anonymous? Why isn't it invite-only, as opposed to private (something a passing onlooker might stumble on)? What do you write? Do you name people? How many readers do you have? Her asking raised more of my own: Why don't I talk to people about this blog? Why don't I polish these posts some more? Why do I keep it up, when I haven't written in months that creep into years? 

This blog is more process than product. I don't write with a reader in mind here, most times. I tweak a line here or there when I like, and leave it if I'm lazy. You're welcome to linger and read if you like. Move along if it irks you. I don't track who stops by (and at some point, I'll mess around with the template enough to remove the defunct counter on the front page). I love the care and comments of anyone who reads. But I don't want these words found by someone googling "my name + blog" because they want a peek into a private space. 

There's a sense of closure to putting the words "out there"- where isn't as important as being out--out of my head, heart, fingers. Into a format and space that's different from what I use for work. Some posts are good, some aren't. I can never be sure where a pointless ramble will lead. This blog is perhaps my version of the pathless woods. I stay away for months, visit when I feel like it, forget the woods exist until I crave them again. These trees are not timber or furniture or firewood. This is space to wander, and remember how to walk, and wonder at the feel of the world around me. 

Everything here is me trying to make sense of something in the bigger world. Sometimes I find that sense in this forest of words.