Tagged: Why do I blog?

Eek.

I've been tagged.
Laura passed me this question: why do you blog?

My first answer, considering how little time I've spent at this blog lately, was sad and sheepish: ummm..lately? I don't.

But as always, Laura set my pen to scribbling, even at 2 AM. I'd climbed out of bed and booted up the laptop, a jetlagged stupor and legendarily bad eyesight conspiring to convince me it was 6:45 AM and time to start my day. Good time for a good question. Perfect time for this question, since I've been hankering to get here more often and more than hankering to give this blog a long overdue makeover.

Why do I blog? The tag asked for 5 reasons. I'll give you 6:

1. Blogging helps me pay attention.

I look at life like a writer when I blog. I notice what's around me, find myself catching things I would have missed in my bazillion mile per hour past. Just knowing I'll be heading here pricks the ears, opens the eyes...keeps me awake and scribbling.

Internally, the effect's just as dramatic. Posts, comments, the blogs I visit through the comment box...blogging stirs up things I doubt I'd run across any other way.


2. There are some truly cool people hanging out on the other side of this keyboard.

See them there? I can't count the fabulous people I've met through this blog, many in person. Can't count the pincho tours during Salamanca visits, the friends this blog has brought me, the cool things I've been asked to do. I just plain like the people who visit this blog.

I have a certain way of looking at the world; I've learned what I've learned navigating the waters of expat life in Spain. If any of that can spark something in somebody else, answer a question, forward a resource, or inspire a good hearty laugh, all the better. Sometimes I think blogging is the ultimate way to pay it forward.

3. Some days I surprise myself.

Amazing what an empty text box can coax out of me. Some days I blog just to see what I type.

4. The blog keeps track of the minutes.

You can't spend 5 weeks in the States and not notice what you don't have in your life: a house, bursting bank accounts, a car, a family and the SUV to cart it around in, you know, things you've built, stuff you've bought. When I moved to Spain, I bought myself a life of well-lived minutes. I don't earn what I used to; I may or may not get back to owning a house and collecting possessions. But I've got to tell you, I spend my time well. This blog lets me mark all those minutes and come back to celebrate them again.


5. I've got this funny thing about bridges.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live somewhere really different from the States. Then I talk to someone who's convinced all Americans are illiterate gun owners who eat nothing but McDonald's. Or open an email from an American who's not sure cell phones have reached Spain yet.

Every once in a while I watch this blog bridge - Spaniards to Americans, Spaniards to expats living in Spain, Americans to the world outside our borders, conservatives to liberals. Catalans to Castillians. People who speak Spanish to those who don't. I like when we disagree; I like when people who are absolutely convinced they know what Americans or Spaniards are like misunderstand me. I like being forced to question my own experience here. I love hosting the party where people who thought they had little in common find common ground.

And there is nothing I would rather do than encourage more of my paisanos to cross the Atlantic, or the Pacific or the border with Mexico or... Travel, people!

6. Writing about my wanders is the perfect excuse.

I must wander, I tell you! I must! I must turn this hard won vocational virtuality into solo travel and blog posts. You're all counting on me, aren't you?

Speaking of which: I'm booked for Tuscany in April. Recommendations, oh wise, well-travelled ones?

Anybody want to pick up this tag? I won't name names, but please, if you'd like to join the tag, leave a comment with a link to your post about why you blog. Here's a spin, nonbloggers - leave a comment about why you don't blog! I've just declared this an equal opportunity tag.

The bravest thing I've ever done

In a Blog Carnival to be published today in honor of her birthday, Laura asks the question "What's the bravest thing you've ever done?"

Although I didn't plan to post a response, her question intrigued me. I decided to sit with it awhile.

Spanish friends routinely call me valiente. When I answer the "how'd you wind up in Spain?" question, their response is inevitably the same: "¡Qué valiente!" More than once, I've heard Nomadita explain my seeming inexplicable actions to puzzled Spaniards in 5 little words: "Es que es muy valiente".

I get emails in the wandering woman account calling me courageous.

Courageous? Really? I don't feel especially courageous. One of the things I ran across while thinking about Laura's question was the difference between English "courage" and Spanish "coraje", or "valor". The English definition, in a classic bow to the stiff upper lip I was born to, includes the notion of endurance - bravely enduring a difficult or uncomfortable challenge. By that definition, it would have taken a lot more courage to stay where I was 5 years ago. I wanted to stop enduring: quit my job, move to Spain, work for myself, play, create. I wanted to feel at home in my life. One day I just knew there could be no more enduring.

So if the bravest thing I've ever done wasn't quitting a secure job? Or selling the only house I've ever owned, and God forbid, that loaded (pun intended) American success symbol, the new blue Volvo?

Was it asking who I was without the CV? Letting myself be scared every single day? Learning to sit beside the fear and enjoy it, even smack it on the shoulder every once in a while, just for fun? Was it allowing myself not to know more than a few things? Looking hard at what was left of "me" after I'd shed the career, the native speaker communication skills and the perfectly developed 5 year plan?

There is something that scares me to death, and I face it every morning.

This morning, knees shaking, I realized I had answered Laura's question almost a year ago, in a post titled The Blank Page.

The bravest thing I've ever done is face the blank page. The blank page I've made of my life - no template, no contract, no assumptions, no concrete plan - and the blank notebook page that new life has led me to make a date with, daily.

The bravest thing I've ever done is to trust myself with a blank slate, with clean white pieces of paper, empty text boxes and freshly prepped balls of clay. The bravest thing I've ever done is make a new decision, every morning, to look at my day, my notebook and my life without considering the outcome. Without a clue as to what I am about to discover. Hmmmm....who might be back there, behind that pen, and what might she be capable of?

This hasn't been an easy year. Reading my old post today, I was struck by its optimism. I haven't heard myself sound that confident in a long time. I find it easy - soothing, in fact - to fall back into well worn templates and old assumptions. To miss my daily writing date. To let the work that's supposedly here only to finance my life become its sole proprietor.

The bravest thing I did today was take Laura's prompt and pick up a pen and paper. The bravest thing I ever do is throw out the plan book and the outline. And trust myself.

I hope you'll surf over and read my post from February. I'm happy with it. And I'm glad I reread it today!

So what's the bravest thing you've ever done?

Full belly laugh from an amateur translator

There I was, agonizing over how to translate the Spanish word propiciar in the Reverte quote, when I gave up, frustrated. Propiciar means "to favor the execution of", more or less, and I just couldn't see myself ending a quote that way. I wanted the quote to end with a bang, as it does in Spanish. I'd already tried finding inspiration in my Spanish dictionary. Nothing. I went straight to the big guns: the Real Academia Española. "Favors the execution of". Bleh.

Simultaneously desperate not to write a sentence I didn't like and ecstatic not to be a professional translator, I decided to invent my own word. It seemed to me that propiciar would, of course, translate as propitiate.

Giggling at my own cleverness, I surfed over to Ask Oxford. I typed in my word, hit search, waited patiently to read "sorry, no listings" -----

and a few moments later, read this:
propitiate: (verb) win or regain the favour of; appease

Seems our word has Latin origins. My invented English word exists!

So how come that never happens when I make up Spanish words in the middle of a conversation?

Expat Interviews - Come on over and meet me

We interrupt my ever so disciplined work-at-home day (oh, when, oh when will I develop an ever so disciplined work-at-home day?) with a new flash.

Melizza from ExpatInterviews is collecting interviews from all kinds of people from all kinds of places, all of whom now live somewhere else. This site is terrific if you're wondering what it's like to live in a particular country, or even if just like reading other people's stories.

So, if you're looking for a little more of the Wandering Woman back story (and ok, I admit it, a photo) I invite you to wander over and check out my interview.

Now, back to that ever so disciplined life of mine. Ahem.

Go away now. Work to do.

It's a year, yesterday!

A sideways glance at the calendar today told me I'd managed to sneeze and sleep my way through a milestone.

Yesterday marked the first birthday of this blog! Yep, I sweated blood exactly 366 days ago at this very desk, trying to figure out just what it is a beginning blogger blogs when a beginning blogger begins to blog.

So I'll thank you for reading and commenting and generally hanging around, and I'll let you in on a bit of wandering-woman's future. I suspect a move to typepad is on its way, mostly because I'm not sure I've ever seen a blog more in need of categories (have you?), and yes, at a year I think it's time I finally invested time in a masthead and (gasp) something more like design. So look for her to some day load just a little more "pretty."

Yet another postscript:
This being an anniversary, of sorts, I googled my way here, where I was told to shower myself with paper gifts today, in celebration of 1 year. Maybe a new book, or a notebook, I think. (Having read this anniversary page, I have to add: I might have considered marrying had I known about the musical instrument gifts at year 24, or the "original poetry tribute" all of you would have had to write at year 46. But the thought of investing 44 years in a relationship only to be given groceries strikes me as odd...)

Thank you for reading. It's fun to play with my electronic notebook, but it's even more fun to know it's connected to all of you.

Getting Started

Today marks the beginning of my blog!

Just about a year ago, I left a high rise tucked behind the Wrigley Building in downtown Chicago and moved myself and a couple of suitcases to Spain. I wanted adventure, I wanted to live in another culture and another language, and, well, something just told me this was next.

So here I am. I’m 42, American, I work in marketing and I live in Salamanca, a very beautiful, very old university town I’ll tell you more about later.

There’s a little bit of paying it forward in this blog, too. More than four years ago, when I announced I was quitting a nice fat VP job to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, someone did me a favor. A very wise woman who I really didn’t know very well advised me to stop being me - driven overachieving 90 mile-an-hour me- for just a while, before choosing a new path. I took her advice and booked a 2 month Spanish course in Spain. (I couldn’t very well take a 2 month vacation without a measurable result, now could I??)

Those 2 months started me on a journey I’d never expected to make. I fell head over heels in love with the Spanish language. I fell in love with life at a slower pace. I fell in love with the adventure of discovering something new every day. Last May, I took the leap and moved to Salamanca, Spain, where I now live and work.

By blogging I plan to catch my travels and adventures in words for myself and for faraway friends, but hey, maybe I’ll pay it forward. Maybe I’ll make just one person question if it’s worth taking a crazy dream off the back burner, just to see what happens.