I have been promising and promising and promising myself that I would sit down and begin daily entries on my blog. But like a lot of promises one makes to one's self, nothing has come of it so far. I read somewhere (Arianna Huffington, I think) that the beauty of blogging is in the laxity of it all, the stream of consciousness thing, the idea that you just sit down and talk deep thoughts out loud, without editing. But I don't like this notion of not editing. Editing is important to me. I want my ideas laid out plainly first. The whoopdedoos can come later. Writing comes very naturally to me, but there is always some tweaking to be done, at least on my end.

Blogging is self-indulgence in the extreme. It is your most private journaling made public. My instinct is to try to make each entry important. I treat each entry as a composition assignment, and I am fighting for mine to be the one read out loud by Teacher. Why is that? Why can't I just cut loose and utter my little, mundane thoughts and then move on? Well, partly because I find those types of blogs rather insipid myself. There's that. I truly don't mind hearing about what somebody had for breakfast, so long as it is told in an interesting, meaningful way, you see.

So occasionally I have started an entry, on a particular subject, and I have set them aside to edit, and then they have languished, unpublished, unread, unremarked upon, for months. But in going back over some of the half-born entries, I was happy with the work. Here, for example, is an entry I began over a year ago:

"My eldest daughter, Greta, turns twelve today. I used to spend hours marveling at the sheer perfection of her; over her creamy skin and rosebud mouth; over her laughing hazel eyes and one plump little curl sitting directly on the top of her head; over her dimpled knuckles and gurgling laugh. Everything about her was beautiful and I drank her in like a milk shake."

I ended it abruptly, as you see, but really -- does much more need to be said? This was a great start and perhaps one day, I will be able to sort out the emotions of motherhood and then organize my thoughts long enough to finish. But editing takes time. So until then, I will have to settle for whatever comes...