On my way running
People have been telling me to get back into blogging for a long time now, and I've been ignoring them--mostly because I don't want to start something, then neglect it and spend the rest of my life trying to shake off a niggling sense of failure. (This isn't exactly without precedent, you see--anyone remember "Eschew Obfuscation?" "J-Rad Blues?" Oh, my poor abandoned bloggy babies...)
ANYWAY...I've been writing more. Something about being alone, with no TV (yeah, there'll a post on that eventually) seems to lend itself to creativity, funnily enough. I've rediscovered the joy of getting lost in writing, and even though nothing's turned into anything I feel like sharing just yet--that happens when writing is both therapy and hobby--I thought it was high time there was a place I could start to publish stuff, even if it's just for me and a small (slightly charitable?) cadre of followers.
Wondering about the story behind the blog's name? Well, it's taken a while to grow on me. You see, I wanted to be all literary and intellectual, so I was going to pull a name from one of my favourite poems. Something like Puddle Wonderful (from e.e. cummings' poem "in Just-spring") or Gravity and Waggery (from Christopher Smart's poem "Jubilate Agno," better known as "For I will consider my cat, Jeoffrey...").
Yeah, well, other people were equally smart, and already HAD blogs with those titles. Humph.
This title came from another poem, one I hadn't known before I picked up my copy of A Child's Anthology of Poetry. It jumped out at me right away:
Song for a Young Girl's Puberty Ceremony
I am on my way running,
I am on my way running,
Looking toward me is the edge of the world,
I am trying to reach it,
The edge of the world does not look far away,
To that I am on my way running.
From what I can determine (and Google failed me here, just a little) these are words from an Apache ceremony undertaken at sunrise by girls entering puberty. Well, I'm a long way off from puberty, thank god. But something about the hopefulness, the freedom, and the slightly naive optimism in the poem resonated with me. Given that my life now is almost like a new puberty--a changing body I'm still getting used to (it runs! it lifts weights! who knew?), new social situations, dramatic ups and downs with loved ones and friends and colleagues--maybe a ceremonial song about that major life change is perfectly apropos.
Stay tuned. I have a lot to share, and I promise to do it on a semi-regular basis.
ANYWAY...I've been writing more. Something about being alone, with no TV (yeah, there'll a post on that eventually) seems to lend itself to creativity, funnily enough. I've rediscovered the joy of getting lost in writing, and even though nothing's turned into anything I feel like sharing just yet--that happens when writing is both therapy and hobby--I thought it was high time there was a place I could start to publish stuff, even if it's just for me and a small (slightly charitable?) cadre of followers.
Wondering about the story behind the blog's name? Well, it's taken a while to grow on me. You see, I wanted to be all literary and intellectual, so I was going to pull a name from one of my favourite poems. Something like Puddle Wonderful (from e.e. cummings' poem "in Just-spring") or Gravity and Waggery (from Christopher Smart's poem "Jubilate Agno," better known as "For I will consider my cat, Jeoffrey...").
Yeah, well, other people were equally smart, and already HAD blogs with those titles. Humph.
This title came from another poem, one I hadn't known before I picked up my copy of A Child's Anthology of Poetry. It jumped out at me right away:
Song for a Young Girl's Puberty Ceremony
I am on my way running,
I am on my way running,
Looking toward me is the edge of the world,
I am trying to reach it,
The edge of the world does not look far away,
To that I am on my way running.
From what I can determine (and Google failed me here, just a little) these are words from an Apache ceremony undertaken at sunrise by girls entering puberty. Well, I'm a long way off from puberty, thank god. But something about the hopefulness, the freedom, and the slightly naive optimism in the poem resonated with me. Given that my life now is almost like a new puberty--a changing body I'm still getting used to (it runs! it lifts weights! who knew?), new social situations, dramatic ups and downs with loved ones and friends and colleagues--maybe a ceremonial song about that major life change is perfectly apropos.
Stay tuned. I have a lot to share, and I promise to do it on a semi-regular basis.
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