"Bird by Bird"

"Bird by Bird," comes from the writings of Anne Lamott and is also a title of one of her books.   Her words refer to a scene from her childhood where her brother is complaining about the impossibility of completing a long put off school project in time to meet the now looming deadline of the next day.   He asks his father how he will ever complete his grand report on birds.   His father's response is very simple, "Bird by bird."    And so I begin another part of my own journey.   Creating a blog has been a possibility for a long time but has been avoided just as long.   The impossibility of doing it right, whatever that means, and the ever present insecurities of thinking, "No one will care?" or worst, "Someone else might care!" do weigh heavily in favor of the procrastinator.    But thanks to brave heroes out there who have previously jumped into these new worlds of words I will begin with the first step.   I realize that I am the one who needs to care. 

Apparently I have now survived the first steps of blogging, choosing the platform and the template, and canvas lies blank in front of me.

Before I retired a number of years ago as an administrator I placed, "Bird by Bird," up on my screen saver to remind me that my current position and situation at that time may have been impossible but that many things could be accomplished as long as I didn't give up, as long as I continued making decisions, prioritizing tasks and taking care of what I could.  I did survive.  I always felt that I was leaving some of the birds out. Later as a member of an woman's RV group I took on the name, "Bird by Bird" on their forum because it represented my slow but stead journey as part of my retirement to discover what comes next.  It has included the process of acquiring an RV, and exploring the new possibilities of traveling.  Those "birds" have included travel accomplishments met, friendships made, mistakes survived and dreams begun.   

So now I continue to explore what comes next.  

"As we hold words in our hands, like stones, sensing the ways in which each is connected to the others, looking at them sometimes from very close, caressing them with our fingers and the tips of our pens, weighing them, moving them around...words create new worlds."   - Orham Panuk