About Time

I’m (re) starting a blog and I don’t have a monologue.

I don’t really have anything specific in mind. This isn’t a challenge-style “photo a day” type blog. It isn’t professional, since I don’t yet work for myself – although I would very much like to. And I wouldn’t say this blog is exactly personal, although it’s bound to be at least a little bit revealing of the (undoubtedly fascinating) tediums of my life.

The question that I’ve asked myself, since the decision to delete my last blog several years ago, is: “Why? Why blog? You’re not really, well, doing enough of anything to blog about. You’re niche-less and unfocused. What’s the point?”

And so, because I feel that it’s somehow wrong to start a blog without some kind of manifesto – this is why I’ve gone and made this space:

I used to write, and I used to write a lot. Essays, artist statements, poetry and other sentiments. I carried tiny pre-Moleskine notebooks around and spent my idle time half filling them with doodles and fragmented language. This is a habit I never should have lost, and I want it back. I think more clearly through the written word than from my mouth.

And, I used to make things. To be fair, I still do – but its relegated now to more practical arts. Remodeling, gardening, cooking, knitting… I just finished my first quilt. Do I love domesticity? Yes, absolutely. But I’m nostalgic for a time when I could hide away in my room for an entire day at a time, headphones on, drawing pictures of my shoes for no other reason than I enjoyed it. This kind of activity led to a degree in making things, which for the past few years has been laying dormant. It needs to start waking up again.

I’m tired of documenting my life through Facebook and Twitter. Sharing photos and exchanging brief messages with old friends is great, don’t get me wrong. But here, here I want to sit back and reflect on a few things. I’ve been losing some perspective and I’d like to formally have a place to collect it again.

I can’t say yet what this blog will and will not be, but I’m happy to be finding some time and space to pursue it.