The tree just outside my window, now stretching above my third-floor apartment, is starting at last to leaf-out - and so is the undertaking of this journal, in perfect cyclic timing with the calendar opening of Spring. Our three preliminary entries required most of a month to think about and write, which accords with the nature of a Spring opening ( Read more... )

Now to that business about a writing venue. It calls for a bit of background, so that you understand how I see this blog and why I'm going at it as I am - which I suspect is somewhat different than most of what happens on LJ. I'd love to be in touch with anyone who can show me otherwise, but my take on this journaling site, so far, is that it's not ( Read more... )

Let me approach those questions in reverse order, and start with that second packed phrase . . . Why am I suggesting that I have about seven years to live? How do I presume to know this?

The direct answer is that I don’t, and am not stating it as a fact. But there are some good reasons for estimating it as the remainder of my useful lifetime - ( Read more... )

For many years, now, I've been particularly attentive to the arrival of February and the week or two leading up to it. This is when the cue of my year's activity first shows itself. I have my own agenda, of course, just like everyone else; but I came to discover that it often gets pushed aside, or at least challenged, by something more insistent. ( Read more... )