Fall Resolutions

Pumpkins at Drazen Orchards in Cheshire, CT

What to do with a blog when it's original purpose has expired? That's what I've been puzzling over for the past month and a half since I last wrote. I've signed in a couple of times, written a couple of half-finished posts (will this be another one?) and fiddled with the design, but haven't gotten up the guts or gusto to click "Publish Post" and thus declare that Girl Awakes lives on in New Haven.

Part of my hesitation is direction: what do I write about now that I'm not skipping around South America anymore? How do I keep this from being random, or boring, or filled with my own banal musings and realizations? Then there's the obvious decline in the appeal of my new locale: New Haven, while it has it's merits, isn't exactly Patagonia. I'm sure that many (most?) of the people who clicked on the link from my mass emails did so in large part to read up on the amazing places I was lucky enough to visit. Who wants to read about my life in Connecticut?

But the truth is, as my friend and biggest blog cheerleader, Meg, told me, "You're still awake, Girl!" and she's right. I am awake, or still awakening, and I still want to record the things I'm thinking and doing and discovering. And, I've decided, I like writing a blog, even if no one reads it. I recently found out that a friend of mine has a secret blog that she hasn't told anyone about--it's not for them, it's for her. As much as I enjoy hearing from friends and family that they read my posts and enjoy them, and as exciting as it is when someone writes a comment, what I like best about writing a blog is writing a blog. Writing for an audience--even if it's only an audience of two--makes me focus and organize my thoughts in a way that I don't do when I write in my journal. This post isn't a good example, but I like thinking about the people who may read a post while I'm writing it; it makes me write to amuse or interest or possibly even inspire them. Now that I'm no longer hiking through three-dimensional Ansel Adams photographs, I'll just have to work extra hard to achieve that.