What's this blog even for?

When I started this blog and website, I wasn't thinking about selling anything, teaching anything, offering anything but my words. I was still getting used to not being a full-time teacher, and I wanted to have a place for long-form interaction. I was never a particularly consistent blogger, or journaler. I had a livejournal, which I loved, because so many of my friends were there, too, and I met lovely people through their writing. There was a sci-fi/fantasy fandom element to it, too, and I loved being able to connect with authors and fans that way. But when facebook came along, and twitter, and they got so big, long form blogging kind of left social media. There's reddit, which I only kind of understand and don't use much, and there's tumblr, ditto. But back in the 2005-2015 years, I was reading a lot of blogs. 

I like blogs. I like reading what people have to say. It seems though that personal blogs are fewer and farther between now, and that there are more blogs that are sponsored and affiliated and dedicated to very specific subject areas. 

I tried to do that here. I have tried to make this all about parenting and Waldorf and storytelling and biography work and fairy tales. It's been difficult for me, because I often don't feel like I have anything that important to say. I'm really afraid of just putting myself out there, because who would want to read about my life, if they don't already know me. But then, I have been happily reading about other people's lives for years. 

There are lots of things I'm interested in talking about. Where I get tripped up, is in feeling like I have to be an expert on anything I bring up. I am not an expert. I don't know when I crossed that line, from being an explorer and an interested person and a dabbler, and became someone who feels the need to know everything before I can speak, and lives in fear of someone commenting and telling me off. Not that anyone EVER COMMENTS HERE. It's like none of you exist, even though the website stats page tells me 421 unique visitors saw this site in the past week. 

I tried closing everything down here for a while. My last course offering had 2 signups (three other people asked about it after I decided not to run it), which made me start seriously questioning what on earth I'm doing here. The fact of the matter is, I never wanted to be a businessperson. I wanted to be an artist and teachers, but I think this is an area where I have a lot of inner work and exploration of my preconceptions to do. See all the gaps over there in the archive listing? So many gaps. There's also a dearth of tags on most of those existing writings. 

I'd love to recommit to writing here, but it has to be without expectations, without saying, oh it has to be polished, it has to be perfect, it has to be worthy of being reprinted in a magazine or linked from some other blog. I miss writing these paper airplane letters and flinging them out into the void. I also miss having some kind of connection with readers. Are you even there? How hard is it to leave a little comment and say hello? I want to go back and add tags to my earlier posts so they're easier to find, and maybe remove some posts that feel too raw or tender in retrospect. 

I hope to offer some more courses and opportunities to work with me, soon, and maybe a membership site? or a patreon page? Would people be interested in supporting my work in exchange for stories or coaching or something? I think I could be a really good coach. 

Anyway, there you are. a post. first in ten weeks or something like that.
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