Today is the first of a new year. Nick is eight and a half. Just Add Father is four months old and still finding its voice and its audience, which is slowly growing, thanks to you. Thanks for your comments and your encouragement, and thanks for passing word of the blog along.
I have no New Year’s resolutions. I break enough promises to myself without adding to the list. But I do want to look back and reflect for a moment.
In the past few months I’ve learned more about the “back end” of blogging–traffic, media, search engines, and such–than I ever thought I would need to. I’ve done more browsing than is good for me. I’ve even opened a Twitter account, to supplement the blog.
I’ve also clarified and sharpened my reasons for writing in the first place. I’ve always known that I don’t want to sell products here (I’ve been asked). But I do want to be read. To that end, I try to create posts that are as engaging and fresh as I can make them.
I’ve realized that a blog post that mixes media and text–prose, poetry, photography, sound, video–is a new literary form. To a writer this is pure catnip. I love the process of experimenting with it.
Blog posts become like literary children. It’s hard for a writer to let go of them. I’ve noticed that some bloggers do a “Top Ten” recap at the end of the year, in case readers missed some. I won’t do that, but if you’re interested in my favorite posts, scroll up and click on the Site Map tab above. There’s a list of topics, and underneath it I’ve included links to the posts I like best.
I’m particularly fond of Treehouse. If you haven’t seen it, here’s the link: Treehouse
No surprise, the main reason I’m writing is to tell stories about the most emotionally charged area in my life–fatherhood–in the most transparent, mindful way that I can. Doing this makes me a better father and a better writer. I hope the process engages you.
For me, the whole exchange is summed up in the Hindu word of greeting, Namaste. It’s often used casually in India to mean hello or goodbye, though it has a larger meaning more on the order of, “I salute the Divinity in you.”
The best explanation of Namaste is one I heard from Ram Dass. It’s this: I greet you from that place which, if I am in that place, and you are in that place, then we are one.
So, Namaste. I hope your year is filled with love.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve been reading “Just Add Father” since its inception, but never posted publicly! It’s a new year, and so I shall change that right now!
I find Wolf’s observations both authentic and moving, and there have been several (“Superman,” as an example) that have made me cry. Not because I cry easily (which I do) but because it touches something deep within the heart of anyone who has ever been a parent and it moves us in ways we couldn’t have predicted! Each parent has their own “parent/child trigger” and Wolf’s essays cover all of them! My children are in their 40’s and yet….I am always moved by some insight or incident that resonates to my own experience as a parent and now, as a grandparent!
As a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, I have suggested “Just Add Father” to several of my patients, and they too, have been moved and touched in ways that have been difficult for them to express, until reading Wolf’s blog! I wish you a very happy and healthy 2011 and look forward to more “Just Add Father!” Your writing is exquisite and your range of experiences, universal! Are we thinking “BOOK?” We (and I mean you) really must!!
Happy 2011 to all of my fellow “”Just Add Father” blog followers!”
Thank you, Susan. I’m blessed to have readers such as you.
Happy new year to you.
very well put I really enjoyed that happy new year namaste
Nick asked me what I was writing this morning as I was working on this post. I told him about Namaste and said, “It’s not the kind of post I usually do. It’s not really a story.”
He said, “No, dad. It kind of is a story.”
Thanks for writing, Jeff.
Happy New Year back to you, and may your tribe increase in the year to come!
Thanks, Charles. May your music be dulcet this year, with scarcely a blot on your line.
Hi there, Wolf! Here I am again, as ever a fan, always a fan of your gentle and insightful observations and your generously shared thoughts on them. Nick is as lucky to have you as you feel to have him … you are a blessing to each other, yes? An eternal circle of infinite love.
HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all! And I just want to be deeply and truly “self-expressed” and say that we (and you know who “we” are) are also blessed to have your pack in our lives.
Thank you, Hope, for being around since I started this. I’m lucky to have you as a reader. A blessing on your house for the new year!
Love the photograph. It’s perfection!!
Cheers to 2011 bringing you good health, laughter, peace, love and more happiness than your heart can hold!
Thanks for that, Kate.
Nora and I had just discussed the photo–she wasn’t sure about it but I was. She hangs these huge Christmas ornaments outside in back, and it somehow seemed right for New Years day.
All blessings to you.
Happy New Year, Wolf, to you and Nora and Nick. Alex from Berkeley sends his love. He’s visiting the homestead.
Rightbackatcha, Tom, and to Alex. Thanks for dropping in.