Chocolate? Dogs? Netflix?

A few months ago I thought it might be fun to write a blog, so I did a little research on blogging and every source asked me the same question:  what is your focus going to be?  Food?  Poetry? Travel?  I felt an instant zap of irritation at the confinement and limitations of this question. It reminded me of those quizzes on Facebook where you have to choose 2 things out of a list of 15 to keep in your life during the pandemic.  Chocolate? Dogs? Netflix? Books? Pajamas? My phone?  Well, I’m a 61-year-old woman who hasn’t been to the hairdresser in a year and I choose them all.  

 

The world is a sprawly, complicated place and like everyone else, I’m a sprawly, complicated being with multiple facets and interests.  Other people’s stories, my toddler granddaughter, my mother’s death when I was 18, the turkey vulture that I’m watching gliding in the wind as I’m writing this – they are all interesting to me and part of who I am at this moment in time.  

I’ve raised two children to adulthood, spent four days in a detention center in Paris, watched a mother elephant persuade her baby to follow her out of the mud and back home again, and I’m giving myself permission to write about any of that or none of that. 

   

It’s always been hard for me to settle down and focus on just one thing.  As a kid I was reprimanded by my teachers for being a loskop (Afrikaans for scatterbrained) and a daydreamer and the truth is, I haven’t changed all that much.  I’m an all over the map kind of person, so that’s what I've decided to call my blog.  I’m not quite sure where I'll be going with it right now, but maybe along the way I’ll find out.