Next month will be the first anniversary of my blog and for a while there I was not sure if I this blog was going to make it until then. Like Blue Witch I seemed to have lost the will to write. If you look at a couple of my last post you will see that one is a photo of a cat’s butt and another is a list of the music CDs I own. If my blog was entertainment that’s sort of on the level of making shadow puppets on the wall with your hands in the beam of a flashlight- not that much effort needed to do either one. Well, shadow puppets are a lot harder to do when you think about it.

I started this blog in order to write about my walk across Spain. I see now it was something I had to do. Something that had to be written. Something that, in a lot of ways, was written without my help. It flowed out of me without effort sometimes. I would sit down, start typing, and watch as lines of words appeared across my monitor screen. The aftermath of the walk was a little harder but I still felt pushed to write it all down. But after that, I don’t know, the need wasn’t there anymore. At the same time I liked the process of writing and I did not want to stop but felt I had nothing more to say.

So, for the last few months I have been stumbling around trying to figure out just what I wanted to say. Trying to figure out why I am doing this. Trying to figure out if I even enjoy doing this. Well, I do enjoy doing this, which is the reason why I am doing it, but what is it I want to say?

Nothing profound, I just want to tell stories. The stories of my life. I realize that each time I write about something that has haunted me from my past, the act of writing it down seems to make the ghost vanish. I see that each time I pretend the ghost is not there it tries harder and harder to get my attention and the more energy I have to use to ignore. But if I turn around, “see” the ghost, and tell it, “Look, I know you are there and I’m not afraid of you anymore,” it leaves. The sense of relief after this is amazing. I feel lighter and not under so much pressure. The past can be very heavy if you try to carry it with you all the time. I’m going to try and drop as much of it as possible.