Hey Universe, et al

I walked out of this dark, warm friendly place about two and a half months ago into the glaring sun and tried to figure out exactly what I wanted when I came back here. I didn't. But I missed writing, and thank you to the people who wrote me to say the writing was missed.

Blogs are puzzling. You either chronicle your every waking moment, or comment snidely on someone else's every waking moment. Or you write about a broad obsession (food) or a narrow one (your adventures in becoming an expert in making, I don't know, vegan sausage, that then becomes a crazy trend in your tiny town and suddenly there's a 200 person waitlist to get into the monthly tempeh-casing-stuffing meet-up being held on your back porch). The word "I" makes many appearances. You only have to have opinions, or be a smarty-pants about something in an effort to be read by all the lesser smarty-pantses.

I started this blog with one intent: to trick myself into doing something (writing) that I feel guilty about not doing enough by setting a constraint (make a wish every day! piece of cake!). As tends to happen when you are me (just wait til you are me, you'll be glad I gave you these instructions), the simple trick unfolded into an endless moibus strip. Because now I don't just want to write every day to appease my sense of guilt*. I want to write my way out of a corner and into the everything. I want to write my way into understanding what we want as individuals, as members of the American family and as a planet. I want to be one window into understanding the meaning of life and what our purpose can be -- and I know there are already many windows out there, but it looks to me like many more are needed.

My hope, Universe, is to become one more window into you. And to write the word "I" alot less. And for this to eventually be what I do all day long.

I know this is vague, but like everybody else, I'm struggling to find the words to describe the mystery. In the meantime, send a postcard. A care package would be nice too. If you sent me a query for the universe and don't see it here, resend it. My computer died and is being revived in Memphis, TN. Hopefully it will get to visit Graceland when it's feeling better. If you want something and think God 2.0 might hear you if you yawp it out in cyberspace, send that here too.

With love for everyone, everything,

Jen

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*And I could cop out here and say it's Jewish guilt, which for me would be more like culutral quarter-Jewish guilt, but really it's not. It's the guilt of a native New Yorker, the guilt of not having as much ambition as everyone else who came here to get themselves on every square of the Monopoly board. As a result you berate yourself about not having the ambition, or you fake the ambition, or you move to the suburbs. EOM.