Having never authored a book, I don’t know this to be 100% true, but I think developing titles is hard and probably an artform on its own. This blog has had three so far. First it was Musings & Memories which truly describes the content, but I found many with that name. Then it was Because of Velvet since my urge to write often stemmed from a story with or about her or came to me while sitting in the field with her. When it turned out her life was shorter than I had hoped for, I kept that name…for a while.
This week I changed it again. There seemed no reason to bop myself in the face with the memory every time I opened the site. I spent a little time (really not much time at all) considering a new title. Then I remembered that almost no one reads this blog (I can only be sure of one, me) and went back to my original intent of the memories and musings. This time, though, I searched first to see if there were many others. Hurray! Not that I could easily find.
Thus, 1954 to present. While I know very well that our memories are flawed, false and, dare I say it, fake, there really are memories in this blog because I have the written proof of some of it. Not journals, because I have tried and failed at dairies/journals all my life. But stories that meant so much to me that I have kept them for over half a century. WOW. The paper is still in one piece and no, it is not papyrus. There are also musings. Mostly careful because this is the Internet we are talking about, but ideas that run like a ribbon through my days. And it all started in 1954.
My mom died this year. As we sorted through her home, my brother and I, we found the baby stuff that new parents accumulate. I really have memories from the year of my birth. No, not my memories, of course, but no promises are made in the title or intent as to what is being shared. Of course, the thing I love about “to present” is that it is an infinite choice. I may have to write about how 2021 sucked way worse than 2020 for me. The pandemic made almost no impact on my lifestyle because I am essentially a hermit anyway. However, mom dying, Velvet dying, new horse not working out, and marking the 11th year of my husband's death this week… Well, I’m fairly stoic and have often been described as having grit, but this compounding thing is only a blessing in saving money, not in hard experiences.
Why is it that the catalyst for writing, or art of any type, often seems to be hardship? What is that about the human brain? Read a small biographical history of Gauguin’s art recently and he sure lived on the edge. Can people still exist that way? I’m reading another book that involves brain science concepts along with those of the rest of our bodies. There is so much we don’t understand about why we are the way we are, and what the true catalyst is for our actions. I think that most of the time it’s just easiest to go with the flow. Sometimes, though, I look around and wonder. Not any specific wonder, just wonder.
Today that brought me to change the title of this blog, just to remove the stab of Velvet’s name staring at me. Welcome to the continuing on again, off again, memories and musings from 1954 to Present.
