Let Go? Hold On?

This blog fell into my Lost Baggage zone a couple of years back. From 2007-18 I had obsessively recorded some thoughts and recollections on every book I read and even some important life experiences and memories.

Then, beginning in summer 2019, I began putting my attention elsewhere. I produced only 4 posts over the past three years. The birth of my granddaughter and my daughter’s childhood encounter with Morse Code, both made it online. So did some thoughts on two books that I had started, but never finished, One Hundred Years of Solitude and How To Watch Soccer. But those efforts hardly registered in my conscious (confession: I had to look all of them up just now to see what, if anything, I had contributed to this blog). Mist and Mold was slowly turning into the internet equivalent of lost baggage, maybe appearing from time to time on someone’s web browser, but mostly accumulating dust on a file server somewhere, forgotten, ignored. (An aside – My inactivity never raised any questions at WP’s marketing office. I regularly receive emails advertising blog-related opportunities.)

How to explain my apparent lack of interest in this previously satisfying journal? Encounters with unsatisfying books, unexpected demands from family and work, all of these played a role. Surprisingly, so did my encounters with some very good books, ones that I finished, loved, but still haven’t written up. Can the emotions inspired by the good writing of others be a cause of writer’s block? Yes. Definitely.

Whatever obstacles had stood in my way through 2019, things took a quick turn for the worse in early 2020 when COVID-19 came along. Like many employers, mine moved directly from “wait-and-see” to “run for the hills!” without warning. Suddenly all of my time was being spent in moving my courses online mid-semester. Even when the semester had ended, I needed to continue planning for fall and helping my colleagues plan too. (My responsibility to them stemmed from the fact that I had made the unfortunate mistake of choosing the 2019-2020 academic year to become department chair and division chair.) COVID-related duties had become a tidal wave that I couldn’t outrun. So, after spending hours every day stuck in front of a keyboard and computer screen, I sure as heck wasn’t going to try and unwind by spending a few more hours there.

But I finally retired a year ago. Old projects like Mist and Mold are getting dusted off and reevaluated. Do I still have an interest in keeping a journal? And what about the books I have read since 2018. Do I write about them or do I just let them go?

Dear Buddha, You have taught us that clinging is a source of suffering (dukkha). Help me to understand my clinging. Is it my merely my sense of duty to my blog, to the stack of already-read books in my office? Or is it something deeper? Is it my self-image that I am clinging to?

I don’t have an answer yet, but maybe one will emerge as I go along. For now I’ll live my life. Write. Or not. And pay attention to whatever happens.