I think I’ve lost control of my blog. It was supposed to be about writing, the writer’s journey, all about language and technique. It was supposed to be honest and open about my process, a first person account, a personal journal for all to read. Maybe I went to far down the road of honest and open. Or maybe this is my writer’s journey.

The other day, we went for a bike ride, me and the kids, down the scenic trail that follows the Niagara River as it flows past Tonawanda, New York. We saw things we’d never seen before.

“Did you see that,” said twelve year old Hazel.

“Yeah, What if you saw something new every day of your life? D’you think that’s possible?” I said.

“Of course,” she said.

“Do you see something new every day?”

“Yes. Don’t you? Doesn’t everybody?”

“I suppose they do but they’re not paying attention so they don’t realize it.”

“Well I see new things all the time,” she said.

“That’s the attentive life I guess,” I said. “You know, that sounds good, The attentive life. Think I’ll put it in a blog.”

“Don’t be preachy,” she warned.

“Who me? Never. That’s boring. Nobody wants to read preachy.”

Smart kid. Reader, if I get that way, stop reading immediately.

Sharon and I live as simply as we can. We don’t want or have a lot. We spend a lot of time with the kids and with each other. We work together on our little Ebay business, selling the interesting things we find at Estate sales and thrift shops. We’re recyclers, cleaning and fixing and reselling. Mostly vintage sewing machines and appliances but often other stuff like printers or household items. We home-school the kids and I write. Lately it’s been getting harder both financially and emotionally.

‘Emotionally’ isn’t the word but it’s as close as I can come in standard English. ‘Empathy’?Or maybe there’s a German word that goes something like schadenleid,  a feeling of sadness in other’s sadness, a sort of antonym to schadenfreude. If there is, then that’s what I’m feeling. I’m not saddened by life; I’m a lucky guy, with lots of good genuine friends and some beautiful children, from two marriages. I live free and am reasonably healthy. Nothing really bad has happened to me – the bad stuff was my fault and mostly avoidable. But the milieu has changed.

Israel and Palestine, Gaza; the destruction of the Socialist experiment in Venezuela; the American Empire bombing and droning the regimes it didn’t like; Homeland Security; racism and policing; racism and the President; the open resurgence of the KKK; homelessness and child poverty; the deterioration of Health Services – a tsunami of badness, with a sick President surfing the wave to more power. All of that is leaking through my castle walls.

So, dear Reader, forgive me if I impose on your goodwill; I find it necessary to incorporate all of this, to open my doors to everything out there, to feel and experience it all. And to write about it.

When I’m done with this blog entry I’ll go back to the novel I’m presently working on – science fiction about a child’s search for her father. Maybe I’ll put a chapter up here at some point, so you can tell me what you think.