Why now?

I find myself thinking I might have to explain--whether to myself or to you--why I'm starting this blog now. But when I post that question, "Why now?" I find a ready answer, "If not now, when?"

In other words, I've thought about starting this blog for a long time, and the impetus to stop thinking and start blogging arrived last weekend. I was visiting my 93 year old mother, feeling a bit trapped in her assisted living apartment, almost as if I were imprisoned somewhere far from home with time on my hands.

I did have a laptop with me, and fortunately someone in my mother's building had an "unlocked" wireless network that enabled me to connect to the internet. A message arrived via Facebook from a friend who had just started a daily blogging challenge. At the suggestion of a former editor, Moose had decided to launch a new blog and post something every day for a whole year. (You can gather quite a lot of writing in that time and have a record of what you're going through--for her, marital separation.)

That's it! I decided. I'm going to ride on her coattails and at least start my blog. I don't know that I'm fully there on the post every day for a year thing, but at least I know she's doing it.

So I begin with gratitude for what I'm calling, "Moose Oliver's Blog Momentum Challenge." It got me started, at least for now.