Virgin snow...

When I was little, I loved to be the first person to tread in new snow. I was last in a family of four, and always felt as though I was playing catch-up with the rest of them. I couldn't break new ground, be the first to go to University, or learn French, or marry... but I could make my mark on virgin snow, look at those tiny footprints with the glow of satisfaction which comes from having Been the First to Do Something.

This, I'm sure, is why I have always loved notebooks... I go into stationery departments and inwardly gasp at the sheer potential of all that blank, white space. And, like many of you I'm sure, I sometimes buy them and then freeze, unable to sully that beautiful first page with mere writing. It has to be GOOD writing. And I find that my best writing comes halfway through most of my many notebooks, the previous, scrappy pages a testament to the editing process. I know that, but something in me doesn't want to subject a new notebook to that process - which is silly of me, because in the end I always cave in and write something - ANYthing, just to break it in.

Two years ago I was given a beautiful book, with a soft, bejewelled cover. And I have still written nothing at all in it. It sits reproachfully in my room, a metaphor for unfulfilled promise and procrastination, a thing of beauty with no inner life of its own.

Too much beauty can be daunting. I take comfort from that as I look in the mirror, or wait for responses from dating sites (more on that story later!!)

Inertia can set in as you wait for perfection.

That's what brings me here. For too long now, I have written for too small an audience. Those who hear my poetry seem to like it very much. Recipients of my emails treasure them. And so I hope that what I write on this blog will become a source of entertainment and - why not? - hope for the people who read it. I believe in love and life and laughter, and I've learnt how to use humour to get through some pretty dreadful times in my life.

The title for this blog came from a thought in a coffee shop a few weeks ago. I'm not too bothered by mortality. I've faced the death of people I love and I think - at almost 50, but still feeling 18, cliched though that is - that I shall come to terms with the end of my own life pretty well. I hope it's not for a very long time, of course, simply because I love life and want to enjoy it for as long as possible.

What bothers me more is the feeling of futility. Many years ago I read 'The Feminine Mystique' in which Friedan refers to 'The Problem That Has No Name'. This phrase has come back to haunt me as I struggle to find the meaning of my life. I've found meaning in various places down the years, and I know I shall again, but for now I have willingly thrown myself into the river of Not Knowing. I think it's important to have those times in your life when you abandon yourself to NOT having the answers, to allowing emotions to bubble up, through and out of your psyche...

This is the promise I made to myself for this year. I hope you will share my journey with me as I tread my prints into the Internet, and maybe we can help each other through what, I am perversely convinced despite the doom-and-gloom merchants, is going to be a wonderful year.