Good Vuch / Ten year Anniversary Post

6:59 PM - Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of this blog.  I'm grateful to G-d for all this life, all this writing, all this connecting- hopefully.

Spent Shabbos with dad.  Have a ride to my apartment, which was to be any minute or not at all.  Thinking about time passed and passing.  thinking about how I love my dad. As the blog has gone, so have ten years gone.  Mom is in the next world.  And... So much to say and not to say.

I don't feel like linking.  A Dana Gioia poem that's on this blog comes to mind- about the letters we write our dead.  And searching comes to mind.  The other day i was sharing the blog with someone asked for a random word, they came up with "hello."  Lots of posts come up.  try it, search a word, let me know what you find.  there's a lot in here, it surprises me how much, and what, I've written here...

Off to wait for my ride...

8:32 PM - Here at my desk in my apartment. Took longer than expected, so much does.  Ride just called to thank me for recommending FUV.  

Thinking about these passed years, these ten blog years.  If you search the words "can't go home again," you'll find posts from when I went home again.  But now I can't.  The house is empty of people and people are what makes a home.  So maybe I was back home again this Shabbos, with dad in his new home, inside a big, clean, place. Sigh. That means I just sighed.

I've searched the word "purple" within this blog, and the words "I shall not," and found some rich stuff.  I like looking back at a piece I wrote one Motzai YK, which is findable by searching "Jennifer Blyer" and/or holy schleppers.  I also like a piece I wrote about the road less travelled and how it doesn't mean what a lot of people think it means.  And a piece about how Hal Holbrook has been Mark Twain was Mark Twain.  I think it was called Role "Em, and I think Pearl liked the title (which reminds me: A big thank you to all who read and commented and were part of the storied and alive history of this blog)...

Off to connect with a friend...

10:53 PM - Back at the keyboard again.

Things from over the years I like/remember:  The four part series about my name.  Any poems I posted from sarah Shapiro.  Any Aaron Bulman poems.  Pems in general.  The poem called, "Did I Miss Anything?' That's a really big one for me and my life.  it's a mission statement- connect, be present.  Anything I quoted from Mr. Rogers. 

I just searched C.S. Lewis in this blog and it turns out I've mentioned him in many posts.  here's a quote I had forgotten knowing that I like all over again:

"When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it." - C.S. Lewis

Here's a poem I just rediscoverd in a previous post.

Apartment House
By Gerald Raftery

A filing cabinet of human lives
Where people swarm like bees in tunnelled hives,
Each to his own cell in the covered comb,
Identical and cramped - we call it home.

11:07 PM - Time for sleep, soon.  

I am grateful to G-d for connections.  Everything comes down to that. To the extent that I don't connect and want to I am pained.  To the extent that I connect i am pleased.  i thank G-d for my continuing to have connections, in my life, and in this blog.

Happy Anniversary to all who see this, all who are part of this.  Thank you.

Good Night and G-d Bless.  (Decided to break the no linking rule just once).

P.S. - 

GNAGB

Good night and G-d bless
Sometimes I write boldly
Sometimes softly, with "may"
Depending on how He moves me

Good night and G-d bless
I write with gratefulness
That G-d blessed me with the
Ability to hope He blesses you

Good night and G-d bless
I write again and again
Sometimes as a rough draft
Sometimes as a gentle wind

- Me (Neil Fleischmann)