Inaugural Post

Never having thought I would ever blog, I now sheepishly nod an appreciative recognition to friends' blogs who have inspired this first, public post.

It was a picture of birds on a telephone wire, or a power cord, in Argentina and an accompanying brief contemplation that addressed them that gave me my first exposure to the power in a blog.  It may as well have been a short article in a Smithsonian issue, one page or less of coverage, but striking.  This was the beauty in my friend Sarah's eye, something so commonplace, perhaps even an unwelcome obstruction of view out her window viewed customarily, but a beautiful geometric pattern of crossing lines in her eyes.  I loved sharing in that beauty, viewing something differently through her, and remembering to look at the world with just such an appreciation.

The fresh, popping photography and pithy commentary of another acquaintance, Meg, in chronicling her family's daily life, its simple beauties, and even its comical struggles, continue to draw me to read her blog, though miles and time now separate even our passing interaction.  I barely knew Meg even when we lived within the same city limits, but I now lean in to listen to what moves her along in life and how it affects her.  Her photographic and written journalism are personal, frank, and unassuming.  Her determined and conclusive positivity about life on a whole is refreshing.

I find, most often, that Facebook increasingly fails to reveal the people that keep me on Facebook at all.  Littered with ads and random "news" posts, like flapping flyers on telephone poles, the social network's newest gimmicks do little for me but to clutter my search for friends' personal words and posted photographs.  My friends get lost in the strange Timeline function with other people's shared posts.  I feel that it is more difficult than before to project who you are on Facebook.  I have appreciated the use of this social networking system, but in search of a tidier and more thorough method with which to express thoughts and convey news and ideas, I now welcome the journey as a new blogger.   Here we go!