MindSpinner

This past week I’ve tried to deal with pressing family issues - big ones, not dull bits. I’ve graded batches of papers. I’ve commented thoughtfully on favorite blogs. I’ve written emails that matter to people I care for. I’ve done a sizable favor for a friend. But I haven’t had time to be still and to write here, except for snatches of this or that. That shouldn’t matter so much, I tell myself, given all that’s going on. I shouldn’t feel guilty. But it’s not guilt. It’s a loss - like not being able to take a long walk, not being able to make time for a friend. So I give my self a little hug this morning and promise that I’ll make time soon.

Saturday morning’s comment at Jo(e)’s:

I don’t write for a living. There are no books in the offing - at least not in the foreseeable future. Maybe that’s the reason that blogging, however limited the hours I can devote to it, is not an afterthought.

I was just rereading Milton’s sonnet on his blindness. I was drawn to it at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning for a single line which today I think I suddenly understand at a level I had not understood before. Milton speaks of writing as “… that one Talent which is death to hide.” I write blog posts because if I don’t write (poems, posts - something) a part of me is not allowed to breathe, to live, to find voice…. I gravitate mostly toward the blogs of people who feel the same way; I can tell by the way they write.