Tryangulation: Blogging breakfast

The word breakfast has been used so commonly as simply the morning meal, that we forget what it means literally: and end to abstinence. So after nine months of blogging abstinence, I've broken the fast and I'm back.

There were a lot of reasons for not blogging for the first few months before inertia got the best of me. Moving to the US with the prospect of living like suburban Americans set off what my psychologist friend calls "adjustment disorder." We filled our newly disordered lives with moving into the Houston suburb of Katy to be near JoNell's sister, parents, et alia, and relocating both sons into our new, barely 1000 ft² apartment. Soon after that 8000 mile relocation, we were displaced by hurricanes Gustav and Ike before I could start my job search in earnest -- just in time for the economic crash. I'm still looking for full time work.

So am I still tryangulating? As far as keeping a running commentary on schooling versus learning, maybe not, although I haven't stopped thinking about knowledge and learning and life. I also haven't, please God, stopped learning myself. The tag line for this blog might change, and I might experiment with some of the new bells and whistles that Typepad has invented in the interim, but these are cosmetic, not content, changes. In a time of catharsis, learning some nuts and bolts can offer some occupational therapy outlets. It's either that or stringing beads.

I haven't in any way stopped writing, although it's been almost entirely by pen on paper, which creates a very different and sensory relationship with words. I keep a notebook in my pocket all the time now, and I give a few other moe serious looking notebooks plenty of exercise too.I took part in an essay writing seminar last fall as a jump start into a couple ideas I've had for writing projects. I've learned plenty, and learned mostly, once again, how much I didn't know. The essay, as a genre, is just about as broad as that of its big brother, the book.

During the seminar, a preliminary sorting of essay categories helped clear my head somewhat and organize my ideas, in a way like sorting an attic full of books before putting them back on their shelves (which I still dream of doing in real life someday).

I will still blog, and for the same reasons I had years ago. What has changed is that deeper writing has drawn me into deeper thinking. For example, work on our experiences in the Guatemalan mountain village is triggering new memories and new understanding with every draft.

The observation-contemplation-writing cycle still works and expands to bring meaning and resolution into the stories that have remained unfinished for so long. This takes more work than blogging, so I'm starting a collection of pieces which are too long to blog, but will still be accessible to all of you out there in the ether. So, for longer or shorter, I'm out there again too.

Image: JoNell and me at a bed and all day breakfast during our last vacation while living in Turkey.