Summer

Blogging makes a good deal of sense for me because it immediately satisfies both my desire to write and my desire to keep track of things.  Things like birds and hikes and bugs and epic thunderheads to the east.  I've resisted it, though, out of a kind of grim faithfulness to reality:  I know that once the school year starts and my teaching responsibilities start taking the form of epic thunderheads themselves, I will promptly leave my little red blog in the dustbin of forgotten projects.  What has allowed me to begin here this afternoon, with enthusiasm and tentative confidence, is the simple idea that this should be a summer blog, an extended conversation that gets picked up and dusted off toward the end of June every year.  If it is dormant from September to June, so be it.  Perhaps that will keep it sharp and beautiful, like the sunrise I saw reflected in Sweetwater Reservoir during this morning's climb up Sweetwater summit.