It’s not that I haven’t had thoughts about this whole pandemic year. I noted the advice that we should all find some way to chronicle living in these times. I had this blog already set up, I have embarrassing amounts of empty notebooks, I have a phone that takes/stores/organizes photos, I have PLENTY of time.

Every time that voice in my head – the one that philosophizes and rambles and keeps me awake and demands that I write things down to quiet it – every time it got so loud as to be unignorable, I would read other people’s words and be satisfied that it had been said, better than I could have. Which is fine. And I’m thankful for the sanity that reading books, blogs, poetry, newsletters (and yes even twitter dammit) has provided when I think we’ve all been on the brink of going crazy. But there is one bit of writing that I did this year because there is one subject that I can write about better than anyone else….me
For my 60th birthday, in September 2019, the daughters gave me a subscription to Storyworth. I have blogged about it before, but the quick recap is that for 52 weeks the Storyworth folks email you a simple question about your life and you email them back with your answer. I’d usually roll the question around in my head for a few days before answering. Writing to those prompts sated my creative need to put words down and kept me sifting through memories which blunted the daily doomscrolling traumas. And then, for Christmas this year, the daughters presented me a bound book.

I love the title they chose, an homage to this blog that they’ve both been supportive of through the years. I read thru the book for the first time last week and, in fact, it reads a lot like this blog. Which is to say that it sounds like me.
Great literature has not been created here. It’s not even a passable memoir. But it’s something I might skim thru every few years, to help fire up those memory synapses. Perhaps a daughter or grandchild will come across it and glean some understanding of their mother or grandmother. Perhaps, but it doesn’t matter. It was a great gift that came at an opportune time.
Goals for 2021? I’ll keep reading other people’s words. And I’ll find a way to keep writing mine.