I began this blog several months ago without a clear vision of what it should be. I wrote a few editorial pieces, but I couldn't get excited about it. There's an editorial blog on every corner of the information superhighway, and although I love to write and enjoy a good debate as much as the next person, I didn't feel enough personal connection to that genre to write to it on a regular basis. So it sat all but inactive, the words of the sparse entries echoing off of the empty walls.
In the meantime, a nasty winter kicked in; delivering the most snow I have seen since my childhood, along with a couple of ice storms just for good measure. Even when cold stuff wasn't falling from the sky, the gloom from the clouds lingered. Punxsutawney Phil hit the top of my list (not the good one) when he accurately predicted six more weeks of frigid misery.
I found myself trying to cope with a new living arrangement, financial woes, and the serious medical problems of some close family members. My archenemy, Seasonal Affective Disorder, crept in and took hold without my even being aware of it. I spent the winter inside with the curtains drawn, in both a literal and metaphorical sense.
But then a funny thing happened. The sun came out and the weather turned warmer. I opened my blinds and my windows, and went outside. I began cleaning out the garage and I mowed down the weeds that had taken my lawn hostage, again in both the literal and metaphorical sense.
And I had an epiphany.
I knew what I needed to do with my blog. It had been staring me in the face for months, since the moment I chose a name for it at the dawn of the previous autumn. "An Invincible Summer" is part of one of my favorite quotes:
"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."
- Albert Camus
If this little portion of my web presence was to be my invincible summer, I couldn't fill it with controversial topics, pet peeves, and potential debate. I had to create an atmosphere to remind me that, even in the depths of my own emotional winters, summer has not vanished. It is inside me, and you, just waiting for us to open the blinds and go outside.
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