Reassessing...

my blog and it's purpose here.  I have shamelessly hammered you with endless photos of birds and filled my posts with senseless uses of junk.  The purpose in that was...I don't know.  My comments on other blogs have become lackadaisical to say the least.  I apologize.

When almost eight-five pound Bonnie lumbered toward the meter reader today, I was horrified (at her exuberance) and I think the meter reader was too!   I yelled, "She's okay!"  I ran toward them as he was aiming his pepper spray.

Bonnie was only greeting our visitor with the enthusiasm she greets each new thing or person...with curiosity, friendliness and an mind open to a new adventure.

Thankfully, the man heard me, knew dogs and read the signs that Bonnie, although a "Big Bad Pit Bull" was not dangerous at all.  During our conversation I learned our house had been marked "Bad Dog-Use Spray".  Bonnie delightfully danced around our young meter reader with the joy and abandonment of a child in a toy store.

Anyway, happy ending...except when the next new meter reader comes.  Because of one man in the past who feared dogs, we are forever branded as "Bad Dog-Use Spray".  It wasn't even because of Bonnie.  My other dogs do their job and bark to announce visitors.  They greet them.  They don't jump up.  They don't growl.  They don't bite.  They just check out the visitors.  And this has left us forever labeled.

I said all that, I think, to say this.  The quality of my posts are suffering for some unknown reason. Volume does not a blog make.  I want you to be entertained by what I write.  I want you to ENJOY the visit.  I can't expect that of every post because every person is different but at least once a week I would like to write a post that touches YOU or makes you think from a different angle or even just makes you smile.  That is why I write.  I've lost sight of that by imposing quantity requirements I've pulled from my butt thin air.

My followers have thinned. Comments have decreased.  Jumping through hoops to entertain is not something I've ever been good at doing. Creating on demand is fun but I feel I have lost quality and part of myself in doing that.

As a rabid reader of Insecure Writer's Support Group and with their great encouragement I can finally admit I Am A Writer.  Sometimes I'm a good writer, other times, not so much.

I intend to work on that and might not be here every day.  My three thousandth posting I just celebrated will grow smaller as I thin.

In doing this I hope to mirror Bonnie's enthusiasm by greeting the day with curiosity, friendliness and an open mind ready for a new adventure.

Of Life

I paint
and it's empty
colorless
from my view

I write
and it's empty
words mean nothing
they only
f
i
l
l
the page

I live
and it's empty
words mean nothing
all is colorless
from my view

Will Death fill the empty?
or will I realize
that
painting
writing
living
was, oh, so much more
than a dream could be?

Turkey Buzzard

For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Attempting Tetractys

i

can not

write on cue

it never comes

forced art is an unremarkable art

art is born with wings flying from the soul

born of itself

giving voice

with faith

write

For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

while trying to learn new forms.

My Dilemma My Whirligig

For Sunday's Whirligig

What sequence of events makes us a writer, not just any writer, but a writer people want to read? This thought circled in my mind late one night as I tried to turn a tale inside out attempting to make it better.

I had kicked off my shoes to reach the comfortable spot where ideas grow as thick as cherries on a spring tree.  It wasn't working.  The screen was white.  No nifty ideas were boiling inside or outside my mind.

The chain of random thoughts failed to inspire any thing I could hang my hat on.

If only there was a scale like the four C's of diamond grades:  cut, carat, clarity and color.  Some scale or system of grading that told me this is good or just give it up.

Beautiful writing will remain, like art, within the eye of the beholder.

My fingers hover over the keys convincing me I cannot write.

My Calling...

for dVerse~Poets Pub

Many voices
Called me
Ancestors of mine
And others
Asked me to dig
I heard them

Animals called me to heal
I healed then and now
But never got a paper
Training was easy
dogs horses
and chickens

My calling changed
To wife, mother, employee
Through all that
Animals and ancestors
paper and paint
Called...I answered

Diamond Lil, Short-haired Border Collie