One Last Look Back… & Then Forward

I’ve let this place lie fallow for a week now.

I’ve been resting.  Contemplating what’s come, and what comes next.

Almost two months ago, I built this blog out of sheer desperation.  Because at that time, wherever I looked I saw a lot of loneliness.  I felt marooned in a city where I didn’t belong.

And somehow, by expressing that to you, and by intentionally trying to see the beauty, over and over, day after day — somehow my heart opened to this place.

I saw this:

And this:

And this, and this, and this…

And I suppose these look like small things, but they opened my heart — they really did — and now I find myself wanting to put down roots here, at least for a time.

I don’t mean just in my city.

I also mean here — right here, on this page, with you.

Because here’s what I’m learning:

Roots need soil.  And maybe, when I began, the ground was dry and full of stones, but I chose, in the face of that dryness, to fertilize and water.  To pull loose the boulders and wrench out the broken glass.

Now?  I have a field fresh-tilled, full of good loam.

And all 40 of those days, I kept thinking that the goal was to till the field.  But suddenly I see that what I really needed was to get myself to a place where I could grow something in it.

Which is what I intend to do.

So let’s set aside all the symbols and the metaphors for a moment and just say it like this:

I’m not finished yet.  I’m leaving this blog open, and I hope to do some good and even beautiful things with it …

I can’t wait to tell you more.