my last friday, friday reflection: why do i write?

This week I chose to use the question "why do you write?" as my Friday Reflections prompt.

It's no secret.  I write for my grandkids first, and family second.  That anyone reads my blog still amazes me.  I mean, how interesting can the things I write about be, really?  Unless you all read it for the same reason I read lots of blogs:

To get a glimpse of how you think, feel, and be a part of your world/life for a brief time.

I was reading blogs long before I was writing one (which is almost 5 years now).  I hope that when my grandkids are older, they read what I have written and say "oh yeah, I remember that!" and that through my words, poetry, and photographs they will remember me, and someday tell their kids about me.  I think of my blog as a series of letters, published publicly, but still so very much like personal letters I would write to them.

I feel that if I capture just a portion of my memories and daily life, then I have left something of myself behind.

As a child I used to think that only people with huge talent, who were creative and famous in their lifetime, really made their "mark" on the world.  Then I read about people like the artist Vincent Van Gogh (who comes immediately to mind), whose talent was not appreciated until after he died.  Now I am not intimating that I am that talented, nor do I expect to be noted for what I have created during my lifetime.  But what I did want was to leave some kind of stamp behind, something tangible that my family could touch, read, feel, to let them know I was here.

And so my blog happened.  I have painted since I was a child, and been a seriously amateur photographer for many years, but the urge to blog surprised even me.  As time went on and my thoughts meandered all over the place, I thought I would eventually run out of things to say.  I have slowed down a bit from that first furor to capture as much as possible of my thoughts, but I still feel the urge to write, except in times of great stress, when my brain just sort of shuts down.  Eventually, the stress passes and my thoughts start to flow again.  Life is dynamic, and so I realize even as I go through dips, that they will pass, and my thoughts will come again.

Writing, for me, is like the ebb and flow of life...


...and life is good. ~cath
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