An Irrelevant Blog Title

Yup, I’ve given a good deal of thought to these titles in the past few days. They didn’t always begin with the “How to,” by the way; I added that just now to give them a little parallelism. I like parallelism. It hints at order.

There were also topics that never got a title.

• What the insurgents have taught me about my democracy. That gave them way too much credit.
• Finding the lemonade as our democracy crumbled around us. I’m tired of the lemonade metaphor; you too?
• Offering a post about hope in the future. Just no. I’m not the person to tell anyone to have hope.

Fellow blogger and friend Kathy Pooler wrote something of this in her blog this week in Staring at the blank page, “Everything feels trite in comparison…and yet, I know life goes on …” 

I wrote about writer’s block seven years ago. You can read it here if you want. A silly thing, really. Fun actually. I don’t feel like being silly these days. Fun is furthest from my mind. I feel responsible. My readership is growing and I want to provide content that is timely, interesting, and thoughtful. And wow, you’d think that would be easy these days with so much going on.

So many are able to do this too. Have you found Heather Cox Richardson yet? She writes a nightly newsletter that takes the events we see on the News and interprets them in light of the American history she teaches at Boston College. Richardson is timely, interesting, and impressive. I share her writings on my Facebook page often.

Do you catch Randy Rainbow now and then? My favorite is still this one, produced when Biden selected his Vice President. You can catch it here. Rainbow is timely, interesting, and fun.

I’m definitely not any of those, at the moment. So, four hours ago I asked my Facebook family for ideas.

When I began this post, I had 24 responses. By the time I took the screen shot, it had shot up to 34. You’ve given me a few topics that deserve a bit more thought than I can muster currently. Thanks Facebook Friends. Here are those:

• Joe Biden as a president who stutters; I would love to tackle that, but let’s do it after he’s had his 100 days and life settles.
• Can animals be prejudiced? Intriguing and she even gives an example (though, personally, it sounds more like a case of animal jealousy and now that we have a new puppy I could write about dog jealousy. Your bone? Now I want it, that bone; no THAT one . . .)
• Will the Lincoln Project fix the Republican Party? That’s easy: No (IMHO)
• The American resistance to learning a foreign language (to which I added that Russians are like us in that way, too). Is it because we both have vast tracks of land with no others in sight? Not like Europe where you must learn a second (or fifth) language just to take the train. Good one; I’d like to chew on it a bit.
• How do we unite after all this division? I hope to tackle that over the next two months in a small online discussion group sponsored by Barb Piscopo and the Lorain Historical Society (and library) in Lorain, Ohio. I don’t have the answers, but I’m hoping if we tackle the “how to” resources I’ve brought together in my little LEAPFROG missive, we might just get a jump on the “just do it” part. Time will tell. Why don’t you join us?

Then there was this one liner from a fellow Vermonter that caught my eye. “Seed catalogs. It’s a metaphor. Go.”

It’s the Comment that got the most Replies from other Commenters. Now, THAT was interesting to me. Besides, it sounded like it could get fun.

Anyone who lives here in Vermont or environs similar (lots of snow, lots of down time in January) know that January is the month to peruse the seed catalogs.

It got comments on tRump as the “seeder” of the events of 1/6; the election as the “seeder” of our current political divide (I do think it goes back quite a bit further); and the importance of sowing those “seeds of hope” — by the smallest of actions, “like the rash of pet adoptions related to CoVid quarantining.” There’s been a rash of pet adoptions? Makes sense, of course, I just hadn’t thought our adopting Jackson was due in part to our CoVid hibernation. It’s an angle I might pursue.

Then there was the comment about sowing the seeds that produced the fear of women and the fear of race. We’d be onto something here if it weren’t now nearly 10 o’clock and time for sleep.

I’m thinking it might be time to bring back my four-part series on “How Do We Talk About Race?” Here’s the link to Part III of that series, just in case.

I had over 2,000 views last month, so I do feel some sense of responsibility to produce something. This week, I need help. And thanks to my readers, my Facebook family, and whomever feels drawn to check me out, I got it.

Thank you Adrienne, Ari, Dagne, Di, Helen, Irene, Jenny, Jessica, Jo, Julie, Kate, Laurie, Susan, Tony, and Vicki for all your good ideas. You rock.

Now if we could just figure out how to title this one.