Why is she still writing again?

I have been requested to explain the inexplicable. Why in the world is Chelsea going on and on about herself, now that she’s back from ancient and exotic places and is not uploading lovely pictures of sunny Italy or regaling us with hair-raising (okay, maybe not) tales of her exploits? Honestly, she’s back home to tell her stories in person now…why would any of us check her blog? As my brother put it, “It looks like you haven’t figured out that you’re not in Italy anymore.” Guess what, Dorothy?

I’m sorry, but I can’t help myself. I’ve discovered how terribly convenient it can be to skip publishing altogether. Anybody, it seems, can write a book now-a-days (and no, that was not intended as a comment on Going Rouge, I promise), and anybody, it is certain, can start blogging. And, if necessary, delude themselves that the world really wants to hear about the minutiae of their everyday lives.

In some moments—perhaps those less clairvoyant—I like to tell myself that I have no such delusions, that I understand that there are more than 6 billion people on this planet and all of them are quite busy enough chasing around their own hearts and thoughts and juggling their own responsibilities. I like to tell myself that I recognize the fact that very few people, if any, and genuinely interested in what I have to say because of the merit of my words. What’s more, I can’t even pretend that the recognition bothers me. Really understanding others’ joys and pains is too overwhelming.

In other moments, I like to regard this as a challenge. Now that the excitement of traveling is gone, now that I have no postcard-worthy shots to upload, now that I am something of a prophet (or scribbler) in her own country, can I compel you to listen? Can I make you smile? Can I make you pause for that second of reflection and insight that so often comes to me when I’m reading writers that I love?
I plan to stick to my resolution not to write as if in either a ship’s log or a diary—chronicling activities without insight is insufferably dry, and inflicting what ought to be private venting on cyberspace is hardly charitable. Hopefully there is a happy medium to be found.

This won’t be a traveler’s diary. I don’t promise to take you to magical and faraway places, but I do promise to try and make you pull out your imagination and dust it off in order to see the magic in your own life. The ordinary, the day to day, is a neglected frontier for exploration. George Elliot writes: “If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.” While I can’t hope to offer a “keen vision,” perhaps a vague glimpse would be refreshing without being overwhelming.

And hopefully it won't kill anybody either.