everything that happens is from now on

i am home alone on a saturday afternoon. being alone at the house is probably the rarest of time, something almost never seen, and yet, here i am. my computer is in a little sunroom that was added on after this house was built, the floor is tile and the walls are yellow (or buttercup if you prefer). through the windows i can see north to the mountains and west to the ocean (i only know it's there in memory though, i can't actually see it). this means the sunset is my entire view at the end of the day, the birds migrating by the dozens to their overnight perch, silhouetted by the brilliant hues. i only get to see this two days a week, most days it is dark already before i get here. i love to just sit and watch the crows, i think this is partly why i am so fond of this. the starlings do this here too, circle around and around. i think one day i will have to make my own video.

the other day someone said that they were going to have a look at my blog to get to know me better. it made sense in context, i mean it was someone who i first got to know through their's, so it only seemed fair, but i couldn't help wonder, what exactly does this place tell someone about me? i don't ever read the archives around here, sometimes i will remember a specific entry and search it out, but mostly history is history, which is probably how it should be. never the less i was inspired to go in and search around the other night. i was amazed to see the things i wrote before i had kids, it was a completely different place. no one knew it existed so i didn't worry too much about how it was perceived. i remember feeling different about it later though, after the kids were born.  i have often struggled with this space. i was tired of writing about my stay at home mom life, not because that life isn't worthy, but because my heart wasn't in it and really, i had nothing new to say. i tried just photos for awhile, but this isn't the best venue for that either, so then i just stopped (with the occasional putter along the way), which brings us to last wednesday night and me reading my archives. it was such a great exercise, to put it all out there and see the line from there to here, it made me feel like i had accomplished something.

the earlier entries made me want to do it again, to make the quiet time to write fiction, or semi-fiction anyway. to be creative with words (and photos) again. this blog used to be called the way people run, which is probably what it should still be called, so i thought i would do a retrospective of the 10 posts i think represented each person i have been along the way and how i have run. the title of the links here were inspired by the 6 word memoir movement.

4.25.2005: i'm the best part of lonely
5.11.2005: tomorrow i'll be something altogether different
9.01.2005: forever looking back i ignore tomorrow
9.12.2005: a minute's enough to change everything
9.22.2005: i came from there, here's better
2.09.2006: into the light we start again
6.23.2006: it wasn't the same before you
11.22.2006: the trees loss was my gain
6.22.2007: that first year changed everything after
12.21.2008: there is no end in sight

i just realized that there wasn't anything about ada in those ten. mostly it is because after she came my life was a blur, a whirling cloud of chaos for so long. she holds this special place inside me, the way she reflects back on myself in so many ways. the post about that is yet to come though, so to be true to the story i should include this one.

so that's where i have been. i still don't know what it says about me though: that i have an unusually strong affection for the past? that as a person i could work harder at being less sad? that i am hopeful about what's ahead? all of them true and of course just part of the story.