As the flames so pleasantly shoot out to my side, I take this blog on a strategic retreat
Saturday, January 5, 2013 at 11:55PM ;)
In the morning, I love to get the fire burning hot and then to sprawl out on the recliner Jacob and Lavina gave me after my surgery, pull out my iPad, sip on a cup of coffee and just read as all that wonderful wood heat radiates out from the woodstove to soak into me. No other heat feels so good - gas heat, electric heat, fuel oil - no, it just isn't the same, even if the temperature is.
I usually can't afford to soak in the warmth of the flames for as long as I would like, but even though weekends tend to be working days for me every bit as much as are weekdays, I often use Saturdays as an excuse to give myself the latitude to just sit in the chair by the stove for an extra hour or two, keep the damned TV turned off, read and soak up that wonderful heat.
Sometimes, I will put my iPad down and just watch the flames for awhile. After all these years, it fascinates me to watch the flames take shape just beyond the edge of the wood and flare out, blue or white at the base, turning orange and yellow as they rise and cool. I think about how, a few decades back, the heat that now warms me exploded out of the sun, traveled at the speed of light across the inner reaches of the solar system for about eight minutes, shot straight at Alaska to be caught by birch leaves or spruce needles and by photosynthesis stored in wood cells to be released now while I sit, sipping coffee and reading by the morning fire.
Just amazing!
;)
In yesterday's post, I stated I might use tonight to explain my theory about how I might go about blogging in this New Year. I feel too lazy to do that right now, but in this post you are getting a hint. They won't all be this small, but many, perhaps most, will be even smaller. One picture maybe. A single paragraph, a single sentence. Some days, maybe as often as once a week, I won't post at all.
Every now and then I will do more a substantial post, run a picture story, perhaps even a photo essay and a genuine article. Some may be very recent, even in progress, others from past years or even decades. Some might bring past and present together.
I started 2012 with a different theory, one in which I would make this blog pay for itself so I wouldn't have to worry about making a living and could devote myself to it full time and make a blog the likes of which the world has never seen. That theory failed. Utterly. I didn't even come close. I must make a living and I have much other work to do - and I recently took on the welcome task of using Rosetta Stone to learn the Iñupiaq language.
Every minute I spend working on this blog is a minute I do not spend doing paying work, putting my books together, learning Iñupiaq. But I love doing this blog. I can't quit. I must cut back. For awhile - a year or two, maybe three. Perhaps by then I can come up with a new theory, coupled with better, faster, more adaptable blogging software and, at last, make this damn thing work. In the near term, I know will lose readership, but I also know some of you will stick with me until I complete the projects I am now working on and come up with the theory that will finally get this blog right.
Consider this a classic strategic retreat, not a surrender.
More on my 2013 blogging theory another day.
State Trooper, firewood in Wasilla
Reader Comments (8)
I would miss you . . . .
Oh dear, no studies from the drive up window at Metro, breakfast at Abby's, school buses, the talking horses, boys in the window and trains on the floor. Margie with her babies, birthday cakes and candles, moose in the meadow and dogs on the road, snow blowing across the road, ravens and planes in the sky, It would be loosing my family in the far north. Whale stories! Trips to AZ! Morning coffee without the boys. Mr Shadow! Oh, dear!
I would as well! :( How does one make money from blogging? Can your readership assist you? :)
You will be missed, but your return will be eagerly awaited!
Stay safe, smooth sailing.
Bill, Wowser!!!!
That opening photo is most incredible. It reminds me of rainy days before I retired from teaching. I would sometimes leave the classroom lights off and have a video of a fireplace on the screen in the front of my middle school classroom.
You could see the weather outside through a wall of windows. Rain is a rare occurrence in the desert. But, I must say that the video seemed to have a calming effect. Oddly, it was almost like the illusion of the fire would radiate a homey, warm feeling.
As for your new vision, I think that as much as your fans will wish for more you need to do what is best for your family and you.
Taking on Iñupiaq must thrill those in the villages you have been documenting. Even if fluency becomes an impossible task in the end, I am positive that it is just the fact that you are making an attempt which endears everyone to you.
Here's to a positive 2003 for all...
Sometimes we all have to cut back on what we love doing -- but sometimes we do more when we do less. No matter what you do, Bill, you have gained many of us who consider you a friend for our lifetime. Thanks for your blog -- it's been a bright spot in my life since I first found your blog in 2008. Without your blog, and our introduction to the other side of Wasilla and beyond in Alaska, many of us would have been left with only negative impressions left by the Palins and their somewhat strange lifestyle.
I just read your long wonderful entries about whales, Inupiaks, and life in the far north. I will miss having more of you to read and more of your photographs to savor, and hope that your need to blog becomes compelling at least every few days. You are documenting ways of life that speak from the heart.
Be assured, reader friends, all the kind of things that have appeared in my blog in the past will continue to - Metro studies, talking horses, etc. In reduced number. I think Nancy has a good point. Perhaps if I do less, I can finally do more. I can see how that could happen.
Thanks for reading - and for commenting.