There and Back Again

 "There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something… You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.". The Hobbit

In the last couple of hours, I've been browsing through some of my older homeschooling writing.   This is something I do infrequently, usually in January, for some reason.  Something to do with new starts, perhaps?

Anyway, reading one's past writings is perhaps one of the best ways to reflect on what one wants to do in the present moment.    And really, what it comes down to is that I want is to write things I will want to read sometime in the future.   

A blog is uniquely suited to the goal of reaching out to others and not least to one's future (and analogically, past) self.    It's probably not the only way to do it, and it obviously has some constraints.   Before blogging, email groups were my favorite media for that kind of thing.   That is a date stamp right there, isn't it?   But never mind that! 

When I was blogging, and writing long posts on message boards, and the like, I was usually talking about Catholic homeschooling, and mothering, with side excursions into literature and educational philosophy and a bit of theology, and organizing my life better.  And we lived far away from other Catholics raising children, and so it was such a gift to find others that I could talk to about things.  It was like finding a portal.  

 Now my kids are grown up.  My daughter is homeschooling her daughters.    I've done my 10K hours for better or for worse.  

Since my youngest joined a charter school almost 10 years ago (and is now graduated and looking at colleges) I haven't had my topic at hand to obsess, erm, write insightfully about.  I've tried other things, other topics to write about -- general commentary, books, knitting, books, Vatican II, books, music, books, St Benedict, you get the picture -- but without notable success in finding my niche.

Here in the center of the US, there are currently ice storms, and apparently, viruses we haven't developed immunities for and are being felled by, and it is January, so I have been spending some quiet time reflecting on resolutions and what 2024 will look like.   

And I have decided to pick up and blog like it's 2007 again.     I'll give it a year, how's that?    And I won't worry about topics.    It's called Eucastrophe because when I started it, we were right past the lockdown and I wanted to hunt for all the blessings that you can only find in crises.   And it still seems like a pretty good title to me.