Dear Readers,
A number of you have remarked to me that some of my recent posts have hung heavy.
On balance, not only would I like this space to promote joy and thinking before it does sadness and concern, I hope it will feel like a repository of ideas (however iffy those ideas may be) more than it does an extended diary though, admittedly, that may be a mistake of approach and form or emanate from my fear of self-exposure or both.
While my routine of subjects (Monday claim, Tuesday place, Wednesday school, etc.) provides me a gentle spur for each day’s post, I have yet to find a clear role for the up and down of my own feelings and life in these missives, even on Saturday, when the subject (e.r. muntrem) is the life of the writer I (Ted) half-pretend to be.
The point of this post was to stop and say: “Hi neighbor, thanks for your concern.”
But a vague belief in “art ahead of authenticity” always itches at me, as it does here, keeps me bound in winter threads and hustling pretentiously into overworked images, past unadorned expressions of gratitude.
All of which is to say that several months into this work I still feel on the outskirts of my subject, still wonder how this page might be worthy of more readers, and still search for a way to articulate my appreciation for your having stayed with me thus far.
--erm