A Little Garden

You don’t want to bore people with too much content on the internet. That’s my excuse for not writing another blog post since the first one in 2018. A lot has happened since then, and I’ve written about it. I’ve been keeping a daily journal for over 30 years. Not really a journal, more like a brain dump. I write a lot. Just not here. But here I am today, on the first day of the new year.

I’d like to start 2025 by finding a word, a mantra of sorts, that I can focus on during the year. It sounds easier and possibly more fruitful than a list of resolutions I’ll soon forget or bargain my way out of. My dear friend Sara does a lot of thinking on this and selects a word for the year, and when she talked about it I thought it sounded like a worthwhile exercise. Even if you forget the word, some magical part of you remembers.

After I had my knee surgeries I watched a lot of YouTube and scrolled through a lot of Instagram. I ❤️’ed a lot. Once I recovered, though, I was still watching a lot of YouTubes and scrolling through a lot of Instagram, and although some was meaningful to me, a lot of it was/is…instantly forgettable. I did not find that following photographers and other artists inspired me. It just entertained me, or worse, distracted me. Nothing wrong with being entertained or — even distracted — but ultimately that’s not what I’m looking for. I’m not down on social media. If not for social media, I wouldn’t have this little corner of the internet. It’s like having a little garden for myself, and like a garden it needs to be treated with a lot of TLC, just like life in general.

So I guess my word for 2025 is garden, in verb form, as in to plant, tend, weed, water, pay attention, learn from the failures, and share beauty and abundance. Garden.

Wheels Up

When I was a kid I loved to travel. Well, I didn't like car trips. Being strapped in the back of a black interior station wagon with no AC and five other kids was not much fun, plus I always got motion sick. My mom used to say I would puke as soon as we backed out of the driveway.  Car trips made me anxious and sick but I loved to fly. When I was 6 or 7 we flew from the small town in northeastern Quebec where we lived to Montreal. The plane had about five rows of regular seats and a bench seat along one side. I remember kneeling on the bench, no seat belt, glued to the window, fascinated by the clouds and the engine propellers. My mother, a nervous flier at best, fretted from across the aisle, telling me to sit down and buckle myself in, but she had my little sister in her lap and I was out of reach. I stayed on my knees, looking out the window, for the whole flight.

When I grew up and got a job, I flew for work and I began to hate flying. I flew a lot and rarely did anything seem to go right -- delays, cancellations, rude people, bad service -- all of it wore me down. I dreaded getting on a plane, even for a fun vacation. Then came the attacks of 9/11 and I spiraled down into a full-blown fear of flying. 

Things changed in the past few years. The fear faded and I began to look forward to taking my seat and waiting for the thrill of "wheels up", that moment when the plane has taken off and the wheels are folded up and tucked into its belly. I'm no longer earthbound; I've been lifted into the sky. I began booking the window seat and taking photos of the sights below. I arrive happy, like the kid kneeling on the bench seat.

I used to have another website. It was mostly a travel blog that I started so I could share photos and stories with my parents. They both passed away, my dad in 2009 and my mom in 2011, and with them went my love of taking photos and writing about my travels. My heart just wasn't in it. I missed the creative outlet that blogging gave me but I thought, well, I guess that's over. I've lost my audience, the people I wanted most in the world to please. I need to move on.

But much like my love of flying, my love of taking photos and writing and having my own little spot on the internet somehow flickered again and here I am, in a new space. Thank you for visiting. I hope we'll travel to some beautiful places together. I call the window seat.