Do you want to talk about you, you, you or listen to me, me, me?

Talkers and Listeners

Yesterday I meandered over to Carol’s blogging back step where she revealed she just visited Cee’s back step.  Some of  you may know that Cee invites us to answer blogging questions.

These help our readers know us better.

Perhaps they even help us know ourselves better.

How would you answer the question “Are you a listener or talker?”

Would you say, “Both”?  (That’s always my standard answer.  We’re both listeners and talkers in different scenarios in our lives.  With Person A we might talk a blue streak.  With Person B we listen endlessly without interjecting.)

Yet, truly, we’re often more inclined more one way or another.  Which way is your default position?

The myth of 1,000 blog followers

Rome wasn’t built in a day

Yes, dear readers, it’s been an auspicious day.  This very blog–Lake Superior Spirit–hath reached the lofty goal of 1,000 followers!  Why, this  happened just after lunch.  I’ve been watching with one lazy eye as the numbers soared during recent weeks.

You’d think this would be a cause to celebrate, to dance merrily, to shout to the treetops, to delight in 1,000 avid readers coming to your blog in eager anticipation of your treasured words and photos.

But, no, my friends, this is not a cause celebre.  It’s hardly even worth more than a raised eyebrow.  In fact, don’t you dare even offer congratulations!  I beg of thee!  You want to know why?

When a stranger returns your purse

Angel

This morning I drove north to a coffee shop in Houghton–5th and Elm (may it forever be immortalized in song and dance, as you will soon discover why) and ordered a coffee and cranberry biscotti.

Then set my big clunky red purse, covered with tiny mirrors, a gift from an Indian physical therapist earlier this year (see this story if you’ve forgotten) on the floor.  An inner voice warned me, “Now don’t you DARE forget that purse!”

I then unpacked Ms. Ellie, the laptop computer from the backpack, retrieved the mouse and waited for the Internet signal before typing a lengthy almost 900 word blog (which you may or may not eventually read) while delightedly sipping coffee and inadvertently tossing biscotti crumbs to and fro.

I even forgot who I was for maybe a half hour.  That’s how engrossed and delighted I was in the writing.

Blogging to illuminate, to reconcile

Illumination

Lately I have been enjoying writing blogs that seem to reconcile stuck, limited, or judging viewpoints within.

Something arises.  Some judgment, some feeling, some sorrow, something that’s not yet integrated.

Perhaps it has to do with a friendship.  A sense of longing.  Something deep inside which wants to be accepted, yet there’s still a pushing away, a not-allowing. Perhaps it’s an anger, a sorrow, a not-understanding.

I sit and type, letting the deepest self share its thoughts.

Then–instead of turning too quickly in the next moment–or too compulsively looking toward your comments or visits–it seems that the words in the blog are felt on a deeper level.  I feel the truth in the words, to understand, to allow.

It often feels like a big ah-ha of understanding.  It feels like it translates into true realization, into something real which can inform the next action.

April madness

Chickadee on six foot snow bank

The long winter continues.

Another eight inches of snow yesterday morning, give or take three inches.  (It could have been eleven inches.  We’ve ceased measuring in late April.)

I am really OK with it.  No need to offer condolences.  We escaped to Florida earlier in the month, thereby easing Endless Winter Restlessness Syndrome.

I’m not sure the other locals are faring as well.  One senses a certain madness in the flitting eyes of grocery shoppers.  Alcohol sales are up.  People tend not to make sense anymore.  Just sayin’.  The livin’ is not easy up here in Cabin Fever land.

Every which way the blogging heart goes next…

Follow your heart, my dear.

OK, it’s time for another blogging blog.  You know, the kind of blog where you blog about blogging.  (We do this when blogging becomes more important in our lives than, say, thinking about doing dishes.)

There is SO much to blog about blogging!  One could blog from now until death-day and never adequately cover the extensive possibilities.

I always advise—quit thinking, and follow what your heart has to say about blogging.

Of course, like all Life advice, this is harder to DO than to type.

Therefore, I listen to all my thoughts and sometimes get confused, just like 99% of the rest of the confused planet.

The light of an ordinary trip through pea soup fog to Marquette

How Lake Superior looks in Marquette

Here we are in Marquette, a town 78 miles from our Little House in the Big Woods.  It’s the Big City, kids.  It even has a Starbucks!  How I love the city–just as much as the woods…

Barry has to cover the Baraga Track Meet for the L’Anse Sentinel.  He–I mean we–have been covering this track meet for more years than you have fingers and toes.

Last year he limped in  to cover aforementioned event with a walker less than two weeks after his first knee replacement.  Oh, wasn’t he cute limping around!  (I wouldn’t know–I don’t stay for the track meet anymore.)  Someone snapped his picture and posted it on Facebook.  He was a sports reporter/hero for five minutes!

Miracle

Here’s what just happened.

I was out reading your blogs, buzzing here and there in the blogosphere for the past hour or so, when suddenly a Fierce Desire struck.  I’m never sure what to do about these Fierce Desires to write blogs, tell stories.  Do you simply allow your typing fingers to have their way?  Or do you attempt to discipline your Fierce Desires into some semblance of order, telling them that they must incubate until morning’s light, or perhaps stay silent until next Tuesday?

I try asking my Heart (which is always the best thing to do) but the Heart feels divided. Or perhaps it’s impossible to hear the heart because too many thoughts are adding their opinions.  So to heck with it, you’ll have to bear with another essay, or perhaps you’ll wander away to look elsewhere on your computer at Tonight’s News or maybe your friend’s latest posting on Facebook.

There’s a story I’ve been wanting to tell you, but haven’t figured out how or where to fit it in.  It has to do with glasses.  Barry’s glasses, to be exact.  I suppose you’re thinking this might be a boring story, but it isn’t.  It’s high excitement!  (At least it was to us.)

View One. The Infamous Glasses.

View Two. The Infamous Glasses

Tiptoeing away…

January, 2012. Our Little House in the Big Woods.

You’ve been expecting this, haven’t you?

You’ve been wondering when Kathy is taking another blogging break?

You clever reader.

You know how it goes.  She writes like crazy for months, and then she accelerates and writes every day for a while, and then she announces a blogging break.  Her last 11-day break occurred in December, so it’s been a long time…

She’s gently closing her blogging door and tiptoeing away.  She’ll leave on a night light in case you want to read past stories–or look at past pictures–while she’s mostly off-line for a while.  She won’t even be reading your blogs during her break.  :(

Thank you for your support during The Long Winter by the Shores of Silver Lake  Lake Superior.  (You Laura Ingalls Wilder fans caught the attempt at humor, right?)  I have so appreciated your readership and comments during these long cold northern winter days and nights.  You’ve helped make this heart feel even warmer than sitting by the wood stove with your support and connection.

May you be blessed as the seasons change.  From our Little House in the Big Woods to your neck of the woods…  Love, Kathy

P.S.  Almost forgot to tell you!  Even though haven’t been taking as many pictures as usual during the last year or so, I found enough photos to share a favorite from each month, starting back in January, 2012.  Will leave you with more than a baker’s dozen of memories:

February, 2012. A quiet moment in Nicaragua. (Our nephew married there–an amazing trip to San Juan del Sur.)

Day in My Life: Inside a two-room schoolhouse

Our little two-room school

Imagine you’re a six-year-old in 1911.  You live on a farm about a mile from the nearest neighbor.  It’s time for you to be educated, Ma says.  You’ve got new shoes–your first shoes ever–and you’ll walk with your big brother and sister down that dirt road, maybe three miles, and you’ll start school at a one-room or two-room school.

Your brother will help the other big kids stoke the wood stove that sits in the corner of the classroom.  You’ll eat your lunch out of a silver pail and make friends with perhaps the only other 1st grade student and you’ll play outside at recess even when it’s ten below zero (-23 C).  And you won’t freeze to death.  You’ll walk the three miles back home and do chores before supper.  Then you’ll start your homework.