fainthearted

Blogging is not for the fainthearted. You can write, pour yourself onto the page, and yet can never be assured of either a consistent readership or interest on the part of those who read your stuff.

I've been away for a while. I panicked. It appeared that someone was reading my blog that I didn't want reading it, and the feelings of shame and embarrassment that have kept my creative boat in dry dock all these years told me sternly to get back to safety.

I changed the name of my blog. A faro means lighthouse in Spanish, and its diminutive form is used for smaller lights that would light a path...sort of like a farol, or lantern. We use them at Christmas -- a paper lunch sack filled partway with sand and a votive candle set inside. They are used in las posadas, the re-enactment of Mary and Joseph looking for an inn in Bethlehem, and they light the pathways to where the couple might find shelter.

These blogs are my farolitos, my little lights that I lay down, one by one for myself, and maybe for others, too. They are a way for me to tell the world how I see things, a way for me to mark where I have been.

And I think that marking my way right now is important. I am back in the UK just now, and while it is cheering and good to see friends and visit places that I know well, and to even sleep in the bed I lofted in my flat, I get confused when I wake up and in the morning cloudiness of mind, and I reach for things in my room that are not there any more. I open cupboards and wardrobes and the clothes I expect to find belong to someone else.

All of this unsettles me, and I am wondering where home is anymore and where it will be. I am marking my way, but I do not know where I am going...