Seven years ago, I was a fairly regular lurker at Harrumph, the then website of Heather Champ. Harrumph was a revelation to me and inspired the idea to have my own site where I would share (not photographs, please, I didn't even own a camera), but my short stories, poems, what have you. It's been a while and I have no notes to refer to, but I believe the conversation at that time might have gone something like the following.

ME: You build websites. Build me a website.

HIM: What are you gonna do with a website?

ME: Like Harrumph. Talk about stuff. Put some of my writings up there.

HIM: Nobody's gonna want to read stories on a computer.*

ME: C'mon please.

HIM: I'm too busy.

ME: Pleeeeeeeeeease.

HIM: Fine Whatever.

(time passes)

HIM: Here you go.

ME: Um, no. I want it like this. No, like that. It has to do this. Not like that. More blue. No yellow. Take out the yellow. No, I don't want that. I want this. Here, put this in. No, wait did I say I wanted that? I don't want that. What I really want is this.

(ED NOTE: In case you're wondering when it was that T ripped out all of his hair-- it was soon after he married me).

And so on, until lo and behold the site as it exists today was built. And I was very happy with my little site. Some days passed. Then more days. And some months. Actual years clocked by.

HIM: The hell?

ME: Am shy.

HIM: Things you are not: shy.

I have no idea why I didn't just plunge in and begin, but I think part of it was that I would be talking about what was going on in my life and I was not particularly happy with some core aspects of my life at the time, namely my job. I had a vision of myself which contrasted sharply with the reality of my life as a corporate wank. And of course, let's not forget that there is much to be said for the recurring thought "who the hell cares what you have to say anyway, dogbreath?"

OLLIE: My sentiments, exactly.

DAISY: Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

HENRY: I gaze upon you with love and affection, now take my picture because I am so very cute and not posing for you at all. Am artfully posed by chance.

But then, one day in February I was reading at Andrea's site and she posted a link to a site with a comment that said something like, that's the best description of love I've ever read.

It must've been right about Valentine's time and the woman whose blog she was linking to had just had her first baby and was writing about life post-partum and I was hooked. HOOKED. The voice was so honest and clear and blisteringly funny and yet, oh the pain and shock and disillusion and yet, the love.

For me, this was a revelation as I had been on-hand (hello--live in nanny) for my niece's entry into this world and the first three months of her life and I could never reconcile how women (and advertisements) waxed all magical about what was one of the most emotional rollercoaster rides through a war zone I'd ever experienced (and, do note, I wasn't even the mother!! Just a sideline observer).

As a lifelong journaler, I was quite smitten with this approach to the personal confessional and so, four years ago yesterday, I woke up and began writing here. Admittedly, I had no idea what I was launching into. No idea, really, what propelled me to or what I expected to experience. Today, I can tell you, as fundamentally silly as it strikes me to have and maintain a blog (and it does, and I expect it always will), it is one of the very best things I have ever done in my life.

Let's recap shall we?

Four years ago: start writing.

Two years ago: attend Artfest.

18 months ago: quit my corporate job--HOO-yah!

6 months ago: begin a BFA and land a teaching gig at an art college

3 months ago: sold all 6 paintings I put into the SMFA annual sale

2 weeks ago: opened registration to SAW and in doing so, manifested a long held dream of hosting an arts retreat.

Perhaps you do not see the links here that I do. Perhaps, you think I would've just done all these things without you. Perhaps, you are wrong.

HENRY: (crooning) If loving you is wrong, I don't wanna be right . . .

The fact is, I know definitively that it is here on this blog with your help, your support, your care, your concern, your laughter, your mother bear protectiveness, your big sister encouragement, and your BFF comfort that I made it to the other side of the mountain.

My gratitude is deep and it is boundless.

I had so much else I wanted to tell you about (as I have been extremely busy these last 10 days and decidedly slammed by the universe that wants to ensure I will never, EVER forget the winter of 2008 for as long as I live-- I swear, I swear I won't so PLEASE make it stop), but that will have to wait to another day as this has gone on too long already.

March 20, 2008

One milestone I definitely wanted to share was that ever since I started taking pictures of my dogs (four years ago now-- hey ANOTHER thing the blog has brought to me: using a digital camera) I have been denied a photograph of our sweet Oliver.

Much like an Amish farmer who thinks his soul will be stolen if captured on film, Ollie is deft in the ways of avoiding being photographed and even when I do get a shot of him, it never really captures what he is all about.

But then, yesterday, I saw him and Henry on the back porch and took a few shots out the window before they realized I was there. Not that Henry would care, au contraire. However, as soon as Ollie saw I had the camera he darted off, but not before I snapped this one. It is blurry sure, and suffers from being taken through a pane of glass-- and yet, I feel quite a sense of accomplishment. Almost as good as if I had photographed some rare albino antelope, or something.

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*This from the man who, in the early 90s, upon reading drafts of my novel about a girl in boarding school commented, "who would ever want to read about life in a prep school?" To his credit, when he saw the success of PREP he did, of his own volition, offer up an apology for such ill-advised criticism.

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