Parting is such sweet sorrow...

How much 'completion' can a body take? This afternoon the epilogue to Bedlam wrote itself, in a fury of flying words that lasted four hours. I just got out my ruler — this manuscript, forever in the making, measures 2.5 inches thick and is 445 pages long. Good lord. Which means that today I will write THE END literally and figuratively twice. On two enormous projects. It's enough to drive a girl into a post-partum swoon. 

I've never been one to burn bridges. I infinitely prefer to ford the river upstream and get my pants wet rather than gaze out over a pile of cinders that leaves me high and dry with no recourse. So, while simply60 will be no more (except in book form), I am, simply or otherwise, reinventing myself next week as a homebuilder. You can find me then, from time to time at the following site, blogging my little heart out:

Habitat for Insanity 

So, by variation, the beat will go on.

In the meantime, allow me this riff on my year just gone by. What a grand experiment, this blog. For 365 consecutive posts, in spite of surgery, injury, travel, late nights, house guests, exhaustion, depression, elation, no connection, poor connection or whatever else ordinary living dishes out, I have required of myself, my inner sow at least, a rumination on each day's Truffle. Tempest fugits, and this exercise slowed things down, made me look at each day, consider it duly, thoughtfully. When we are young tomorrows seem infinite. The older we get, the faster the days fly by, one indistinguishable from the last. Or the next. Caught up, as we are, in all sorts of — well — trifles. While I can, and do, pledge here, not to you but to me, to continue to reflect on each day's delicacy, realistically I know it probably won't happen. Not with the same deliberation nor with the same stop-frame photo quality writing this blog has afforded me. Still, do yourself a favor, look — I mean look — for the truffle in your day. There's always one, and the harder it is to root out, the tastier the morsel.

Although I embarked on simply60 for its challenge factor, I cherish it for its tentacles, slithering out across the continental United States and beyond, to computers across the world. As Buzz Lightyear would say, "To infinity and beyond!" My deepest thanks to Vicki, the silent smarts behind it all, who designed the page, taught me how to be here for you, picked up my technological pieces when they collapsed around me and, more than anything, encouraged me to blog in the first place. My friend Blanche Lyon, a private, reclusive sort, thanks her also, for getting me out in the world.

BTW, I'm two-thirds of the way toward my three-digit goal of hits for the day, and it's still early. No word from Antarctica yet. Oh well. Maybe penguins don't have computer skills after all. Or there's cloud cover. 

In the meantime, it's been grand. So very grand  —

 ... that I should say goodnight till it be morrow.

Truffle: You, Dear Reader. You.

Quote of the day: "How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." (Henry David Thoreau)

 

Comments

[Regular Reader]

Thank you for a year of your fine companionship in story, musing, delights, reading, and more. And a very Happy Birthday to you. Enjoy your new year well begun by achievements committed to and completed. A house seems almost tooo simple for you, so why not the next novel, play, or memoir, as well? And a year of splendid good health for you. This has been a sugar plum to look forward to, dancing in imagination and delivering sweetness. Thank you.

[Stella vaines]

Kate I can't believe a whole year has passed. Happy birthday wherever you are. I have so much enjoyed the sense of contct your blog has given me. I cringe to think of our night in the lakes and the fact that it so nearly didn't happen that day...I am sure there have been other equally near misses. I'm looking forward to the book.
I like the title of the next one 'habitat insanity'.
I have just thought I was going mad for the past year and a half. You have so cleverly encapsulated the experience in words, as ever.
I will miss this daily
missive, even if I often read it a month at a time.
Lots of love
stella x

[Sue Curtin]

A Salute and a Very Happy Birthday to you, Kate! And much gratitude for the year of pleasure I received from your blog. Let us know when it is a Hard(orsoft)copy Keepsake, for it deserves to be that. Thanks for your daily insights, joys, complaints, and observations. I can think of no more rewarding company on a Journey. So onward now to a different project of creation. Keep up the mojo! Truffles ahoy!

[vicki]

Happy Birthday!
YOU DID IT!
I always knew that you were one determined gal when it came to goals, and such--but you really have proven to be the embodiment of: "Where there's a will, there's a way!"

You'll smile and blush at this: I emailed a new friend of mine the other day, to invite him to visit your blog to help celebrate and get to triple digits on the counter. He visited, he read, and immediately wrote back: "Who IS this woman ... I love her writing and outlook on life, etc." (I knew he was a smart guy!)

I'm so glad that you let me persuade you into this...and the next one!

Thank YOU, dear Kate...for all those truffles, and so much more.

[Nancy]

Goodbye simply60, hello habitat for humanity! Happy Day adventurous Kate. May your life always find you trying something new, and your fingers keep flying over the keys and your years be many more!

[Kate Stout]

Well...for insanity, at least.  :-)