only way to start is to start

I've let this blog lapse, as I often do, until something starts niggling at the back of my mind and I remember about it again.  I always wish I could write witty, timely prose and that expectation and challenge stops me in my tracks.  So I procrastinate, pushing it into the back of my mind until a little worm of a memory starts wiggling around back there....

I wonder if I should title this blog something that reflects that one step forward, two steps back approach.  There just seems to be so much else that is compelling on the web that I don't even think of what I might have to say.  I have the urge to just quote "them."  Ha, ha.  Like a news-gathering service of items that interest me.  But I want to be more than a relay system.

I long to be creative...in an erudite way.  In a cultured, yet spiritually-aware, sophisticated, though down-to-earth and personally-warm writing persona.  I long to be opinionated in the best possible sense of the word.  Opinionated in the grandest of spiritual traditions.  Like Rumi.

But so much of the time, it seems like I am but a sheep, following others' opinions, likes and dislikes, afraid of unearthing my own.  Afraid of identifying my own, and following my own.  If there's someone else that is "for" something that I am "for" also, then I can have it.  Then I can cherish it.  Why can't I just have my solitary love of something?  Without needing validation through others also valuing it?  Maybe because I'm always running up against my parents' opinions (long after they're gone), society's expectations and opinions, and the world at large (whatever that is).  The world at large, for me I think, is everyone I encounter in a given day, AND WHAT THEY THINK.

Hmmmm.  Time to retreat to Walden's Pond, or a facsimile thereof.  My own thinking woman's retreat from the cares (and opinions) of the world.  We all need one.

And we all need, I'm thinking, those with whom we share similar views.  But just not to require validation from them for their opinions so that we can value our own.  It's a fine line -- but the difference between standing on your own feet surrounded by caring others who share the same ground and leaning on them for where they stand.  Think about it.