The Beyond Back Creek Time Capsule

The blogging platform WordPress provides daily and weekly challenges to boost writing skills. I usually don’t get around to considering them until the deadline has passed, but today’s prompt was an idea that had been fluttering around my mind for a week or two. It’s now the season when we start to look back at goals met and opportunities missed. So what would I put into a time capsule for 2012 that would highlight my life this year?

A hard copy of our first post would be my first choice. Mike and I both started blogging this year. In fact, the first few posts at Beyond Back Creek were written by Mike, until he wandered off and started writing about fish and beer.

Starting the blog was hard for me.  There was a seemingly-immense technological barrier at first. I’m a hand-on person, a kinesthetic learner. Non-tangible procedures are hard for me to figure out. As easy as WordPress is to use, I still had to get to the place where I could use it. Domain names, site hosts, HTML, and so many other words that have slipped down the valleys of my brain.  I still have lots to learn, and I know there are things I do incorrectly.  But I’m really proud of getting here, to the place where I can type my thoughts, and you can read them.

And you do read them, or at least look at them. That’s another highlight of my year.  Throughout the decades, as far back as I can remember, I wrote semi-weekly notes to my grandmother. They were like journal entries, sharing my activities and my thoughts, and always accompanied by little sketches. I wanted to share the best parts of my life with Grandma, so no matter how aggravating or disappointing or scary or boring my life seemed, I looked for ways to tease out the happiness. Her letters back to me were similar, with pictures of a happy stick figure visiting neighbors, shopping with friends, feeding the birds. When she died a few years ago, I think I stopped working to shine up the good bits of the day, and just took the ups and downs as a whole. While that may be a responsible strategy for retirement investments, it’s not really a fun way to look at life. Having an audience to share things with helps me to focus on the positive changes. Seeing the page views keeps me accountable. And getting feedback, both on and off-line, inspires me to look for even more treasures in the rough. Were it not for all the emails (dozens, some weeks) I would not have started the “Repurpose This” feature, literally giving a new life to cast-offs. So the landfill and I thank you.

At the beginning of 2012, I never  thought I would be comfortable writing on a computer.  Heaven knows I am not at peace with it yet, but now that is something I can see in my future. So, yes, a copy of that very first post, and maybe a screen shot ( I have seen this referred to, and can imagine what it would be, although I have no idea, yet, how to take one) of the “all posts” admin page where it states “125 posts published”. After today, it will be 126. And all but three were written by me.

Those posts barely touch the surface of life here in 2012, but I think they give a feeling of what I liked best about it. Food, gardening, art, animals, creating a home. Those are pretty common-place responses to the question ” Tell us about yourself…what are some of your favorite things?”.  I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who would admit to disliking any of those things, except to make a splash in a conversation gone cold. And perhaps that’s why I never wrote the “About” page for Beyond Back Creek. What was there to say about what I enjoyed that wasn’t obvious? But the more I blog, and the more I read other blogs, I realize that the very same words can symbolize very different lives.

So in addition to putting that first post into the time capsule, I will add one more thing. A New Year’s Resolution to write an “About” page. For real. To share.