Hasta Raíz

There was a time when I wrote. I wrote about music and books. I wrote about computers and building systems. I took photographs and wrote about the process and my inspirations. And in that, I met some wonderful people, though, much like the internet, nothing was forgotten even as it was all ephemeral.

It has been years since I wrote and I missed it, so, here I am.

When I think back on when I slowly stopped writing it coincided with the rise of social media. It was easier to dash off an inarticulate thought on Twitter, share a photo on Instagram, and skip the class reunion thanks to Facebook.

This is not to say I have regrets. In the past decade or so I’ve lived a life that I’d been dreaming of since I was a kid. I’ve traveled widely, fallen in love and fallen out, fell in love again and married. I learned and forgotten some Arabic, wrestled my understanding of Spanish into a place where I can joke and have deeper conversations with my in-laws. I’ve climbed mountains, literal and figurative, and I’ve rebuilt my life repeatedly in those ten years.

However, I am ready to get back to basics. Hasta raíz.

Blogging is inherently a narcissistic pursuit: I am writing for myself, slapping those words on a public edifice, and occasionally wondering if a passerby paused for a moment to consider it. It’s all about me.

Books, music, cocktails, cooking, and meanders are what I plan to re-learn my voice writing about. Books, music, and meanders have been a constant in my life, cocktails and cooking became new passions in the pandemic and in of themselves are pushing me towards new places.

Maybe it’ll be a book review or some song that hit me at the right moment in the right place with the right mood. It could be a cocktail I learned or shook out in that late night desperation when all you have are random liquors and a desire to be taken some place new. Whatever it is my hope is to start again pinning words and sticking sentences to my feelings.

Ya empiezo de nuevo.