eARTh journals

Well, talk about sweetness? Not that I was but I would have been if I’d know the response that would come following the large group e-mailer I sent out yesterday, asking folks to comment on my blog and become followers. The response has been, is being, truly affirming! Thank you, my dears! I said I’d send the first 15 people who both commented and became followers a homemade journal. And I will. Have been working on them since this morning’s wee hours... A photo of one cover appears above.

The comments that you’ve sent, making blogging a conversation, have made me love this form even more. One person who I don’t know well made a comment and now I know her better. I love how writing can shorten the divide between people—I’m not the only one who likes to look at art alone. Claire wrote: “I realized a couple of years ago—at a Museum in Toulouse during a reception for an academic conference—that appreciating art feels like a very private, intimate thing to me. To share my reaction to art with someone I don't know intimately feels uncomfortably exhibitionist...”

Here are more comments I thought anyone reading this blog might enjoy:

Tamara wrote: “Someone else has my same questions...”

Virginia Lee: “When I was living in Ukraine, I noticed how the Ukrainians revered their sojourns in the park...it's where parents would stroll with their children, lovers would steal an intimate kiss on a park bench, friends would meet for a spontaneous picnic & where lonely pensioners would walk their dogs — all escaping the confines of their small, crowded apartments.”

From Lesley, who was my poetry student when she was in high school and now teaches poetry herself: “I live in a part of the city that is sandwiched between the ocean and my most favorite park. I couldn't live anywhere else in San Francisco. And, it is nature that makes me happiest about this city. Coffee on a foggy morning, a workout from the De Young to Ocean Beach, a rare sunny summer evening overlooking the water.”

From Bruce, someone who walks where I do: “When I walk on Jacks Peak, I often feel that I have steeped into a time machine, and I am gazing on the Monterey area as looked 100 years ago... “ From a few vantage points, the view seems eons old.

And from Nanda about a beloved mutual friend who died a couple years ago at not quite 55 came this:” I think often of Alie's eyes, a certain way you can swim in them and see how bright her response would be way before she even said anything.”

By the glue on my fingers (and in my hair)! I promise to have those 15 journals finished within a week’s time. And to those of you who haven’t become followers and posted your comments yet and to those who came into the fold after I hit 15 new people mark, if you want a journal, just let me know, we’ll work out something. Maybe you can send a few folks my way and together we can make the circle of people who love listening to the breeze call them a little wider.