Summer                                                                 Most Heat Moon

Virtually nobody asked me how I pick a topic for Ancientrails. So, I’ll answer anyhow. Once in a while I have a clear idea like Latin, Kate in Colorado, thanks to Tom and Roxann, but just as often I sit down and stare at the screen until something comes.

The question of how I pick topics came to me just now and it’s really not an easy one to answer. There are certainly diary type entries that say this happened, that happened and I thought this. There are also entries that I think of as conceptual bread crumbs, a sort of Hansel and Gretel trail laid down my in the now self for my future self to follow. These can be about anything, but often they’re about politics, philosophy, religion, art. Matters on which my position may change, probably is changing, or even matters on which I don’t know what I think.

Of course there are holiday and Great Wheel driven posts since the ways we mark time as special, as sacred continues to fascinate me.  Events might trigger a post about aging, the third phase, the move to Colorado, family. The changing face of the gardening year also prompts posts, just as the changing seasons do.

What’s the point? On the macro level these are all bread crumbs of a sort, perhaps for grandkids or children, perhaps for myself or those who know me, perhaps for archivists. At the particular level it’s hard to say. Wandering thoughts, sort of a mental graffiti thrown up on the digital wall. And the keyboard, having writ, moves on.