Today is the last Thursday of the month, so it’s the “Inspired by in February “ post.
The contenders include:
1. The end of my sourdough obsession (but not the end of sourdough.)
2. My new ADHD Cleaning Schedule.
3. The relief of not having the time-suck of Instagram on my phone anymore.
Can I make a blog post out of such banality?
******
from the paper notebook
8:00 AM
There is a smell of skunk in the yard. Rookie went barreling down this morning in the dark, and at first I thought: deer, but then I smelled skunk and panicked. Fortunately, nothing happened. The last thing I need is a skunked dog.
I’m yearning for a juicy project. I want a big, hairy project to sink my teeth into. Something that will make my brain hurt. But the usual things—like learning a language or an instrument — don’t appeal. I’d like to write something, but what?
I discounted memoir because: Why? I haven’t lived a remarkable life. There’s been no hardship or drama. I have stories, sure, but everyone has stories.
Now that I’m on a steady diet of reading novels, I’m wondering how novelists do it; how they create these characters and these worlds and even histories and backstories for so many people? I not only wonder how they do it, but why I care. Because I do.
Every time I write my blog, I ask myself: Who cares?
I ask: Who is this for?
I ask: Why do such a thing?
Also.
Why sit here, on cold mornings, and write all these words about nothing? About dogs and invisible skunks and sourdough starter and vacuuming and going to Wegmans and social media addiction?
Why do I do this?
What’s the point?
There is no point. It’s pointless.
Yes.
And.
I’m compelled to do it. And, if I don’t do it, I lose myself.
And who is this self I lose?
My inner self.
And what exactly is that?
The voice. It’s the voice.
I can’t explain it. (Try.)
There’s a voice that needs to talk, and the only way it can talk is through the pen. It can’t just talk silently up in my head.
Well, yeah, it can.
So there are actually two voices. There’s a voice that talks inside my head.
For example, this morning, after I read about the Federal government (Trump) cutting off Medicare funds to people in Minneapolis, which is an obviously slap at Ilan Omar for yelling at him at the State of the Union, my “head voice” started raging about how much I hate Trump and hope he dies soon, and how I would stand in a long line for the satifaction of spitting on his grave.
So yeah. There’s that voice. But that voice doesn’t talk through the pen. Sometimes it does, but not much.
But the pen voice HAS to write. It’s that voice that has been filling notebooks for decades.
Who is that voice, and why is she so obsessed with filling notebooks?
And why does she become so untethered when even a few days go by, and there’s been no communication, no ink? No describing what she had for lunch, or how cold the dog walk was, or how many people did or did not show up for yoga?
What’s this need, this compulsion, this obsession? Why does it feel like if I don’t do it, I don’t exist?
Also.
Why do I feel this compulsion to blog, to post, to put something “out there?”
Every week. Without a miss.
What is that about?
Very few people read me. Nobody’s life is better for having read, “What Inspired Me in February 2026”
Who cares about my sourdough journey coming to an end, or the fact that the skunks in the neighborhood are waking up?
Nobody.
Except me. I care.
And who is this me who cares?
It’s the me who’s trying to make my life mean something, or make sense. Even though I know it doesn’t, and never will.
I keep trying.
Year after year.
Decade after decade.
Notebook after notebook.
Me and the voice. I seem to need to keep this pathetic little voice alive. It’s like a pet. I feed it ink. I let it out. I take it for a walk along the lined pages of notebooks. Miles and miles of words. Words that don’t go anywhere, they just circle the same neighborhood again and again.
Is that all this is? A long dog walk in ink?
I don’t know. But I want to know. It would help to know why.
It would help to know the point.
Novelists believe they’ve seen something that readers need to see. Something about human nature, about India, about families, about love, about power, about deceit, about loss. They tell about it through the characters, the situations they get themselves into and out of.
The non-fiction writers write about germs, and oceans, and social injustice. They do the research, trace the problem back to its source, and then plot the repercussions and explain why, how, and what might be done about it.
But me? And my blog? I’m trying to find or make meaning out of yoga and meatloaf.
I can’t. I can’t make meaning out of my life.
It doesn’t mean anything.
It just is.
Like the day is, or the dog is, or the icy sidewalk is.
I’m happy some days, sad others, bored sometimes. It just is. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t have a point. There is no why. Why is there ice on the deck? Because the temps went below freezing, and it rained overnight. There’s no point. There’s no meaning.
But I want my life to mean something. I want it to matter, somehow. And I want to know why I have this insane compulsion to sit here all morning, pushing the ink.
Why does a person do anything? Why teach yoga, why coach softball? Why own a coffee shop? Why cut hair? What’s the point of anything anyone does?
We each have to make our own meaning, I guess. We each have to tell ourselves the story about why our lives matter.
Is that why I write—to make meatloaf and dusting and walking dogs and teaching yoga matter? Do I chronicle my days so I have proof that I lived them? Is the insistent voice, the one that must write, no matter what, my inner wisdom guide trying to guide me to the point, and I’m just not getting it yet?
Inspiration Location 