Blog Neighbors

Sometimes I think I might just close up this blog. It might be a moment when I'm feeling particularly exposed, or feeling stymied by what I cannot fairly write here because it will infringe unreasonably on another's privacy, or because I know the thing I might be feeling will pass, and I don't want to put it out there knowing that as soon as I press "Publish" it will already be a lie, and so I don't write sometimes, the words just fill my head, a jumble of thoughts and feelings trying to find their way to light, and I wonder, why write on the blog if I can't write everything that arises in me, and then I pay visits to my blog neighbors instead, and I find Ms. Moon putting the Republican race in brilliant perspective and Tearful peeling back the meaning of the universe in a moment of hard-won domestic peace, and the Grady Doctor wrestling with hard and magnificent truths in painful counterpoint while Elizabeth explains how a day in the life of beautiful Sophie is made to work with the help of her extraordinary brothers, and my spirit brother Mark reporting that his application to sponsor his partner of 22 years, French citizen Fred, co-parent of the four most photogenic children on the face of the earth, has been denied, putting the appeal in motion, and Mel and Debra, in the same place I am, watching our baby chicks fly, and ellen breaking it down about why she's breaking up with Oscar, and Miss A in Brooklyn making it happen, day by day, not all of them easy, and really all of you, I could go on and on, but instead I'll just say that when I feel tempted to shut this thing down, I find myself here again, reading your words, feeling the great privilege of being privy to your lives, and understanding how much I'd miss you if I couldn't come here and be with you sometimes. I learn so much from you. I root so hard for you. You make me cry. You make me cheer. You remind me how far our connections are flung, and how very near.