A new year

I’ve been writing a diary the old-fashioned way. I’m constantly behind, of course, which is one of the reasons I’ve never persisted very long in the past. It’s a real tyranny, I think, to try to record anything more than tiny fragments of the whole. Which has been one of blogging’s appeals: it’s a snapshot of a certain attitude toward life, but only one of my many attitudes. It records certain activities (making, doing) and in the process illuminates tiny pockets of the context in which these things happen: certain places, people, interconnections, relationships. I’ve never thought of this as a highly personal blog, but it’s nothing but, really. Somehow I’ve wanted to find a way to continue to write here that is honest, yet private as well. There were moments way back, oh, three months ago, when I swore to Isaac I’d never write publicly again, never post a photograph, never make a trace he’d be able to find. I didn’t want him to know anything about my life, anything about me. I still don’t, but I care less. There’s so much I want to say.

I’m afraid that I gave the impression in a post a while back that my bicycle-riding friend was scared away by the prospect of hauling boxes (a not unreasonable fear) and piked even in the face of my cancer. Uncharitably, this thought crossed my mind at the time, but I was terribly late, and turns out, he waited until just before I got back. When we next saw each other a couple of days later, he told me how shaken he was by my news, and I had to say, there’s something else as well. Without going into any of the details, without my ranting or explaining or blaming, he told me without hesitation, he’s done you a favour.