Why Do You Come Here?

{Middle Girl before getting examined at the eye doctor. Pic has no real relevance to the post below, but I love it. She was very disappointed to learn that she does not need glasses. She was hoping to score a pair of specs to be like her big sister.}

This is one of those moments. I sit in a Starbucks by the girls' camp. I just dropped them off.

I'm at a little table, facing out. People walk by, most of them hidden behind shades. Today's supposed to be a scorcher. There are three women to my right talking - knowingly - about Manhattan private school admissions. From what I gather, one of them works at one of these schools. I can't figure out which. I eschew my headphones and eavesdrop. We will apply Big Girl to school come fall.

A woman pushes a stroller by the window except it's not a stroller. It is a double-decker dog carrier. There is one dog up top and one below and she walks another on a leash.

And I sit here, another blond behind another screen, watching. Watching and listening and wondering. Wondering about many things, too many things, but one thing slices through. It's a word that toddlers love to ask. It's a word that's also a question.

Why?

Today I'm wondering why. Why I come to Starbucks and to this screen. Why I come to this blog. These things take me away from my girls, from the physical world, from my fiction. I trust myself enough to know that I would not come here, day after day, week after week, year after year, unless it was giving me something important.

Profound, even.

What is it though? What does this blog give me? Yes, this is just another way of asking that question I ask again and again, that I will always ask: Why do I blog? It's a question I implore all of you to ask if you blog. Why do you do it? Why do you put yourself out there? Why do you float pieces of yourself and your struggles into the ether? Why?

It is a question I implore you to ask even if you do not blog. Why do you do the things you do? Do you do them for more negative reasons? Because you need an escape? Because they've become habit? Because you are scared to stop? Because you don't know what else you'd do?

Or do you blog - or do whatever else - for positive, if elusive, reasons? Because they are part of your identity and your evolution? Because they enhance your essence? Because they allow you to reach others, and by extension, your greater self? Because by doing these things you are excavating the soil of who it is you are?

Today my head is knotted with these questions. To look at me you wouldn't know. You'd see another chick at Starbucks ducking behind a laptop. You'd see someone writing something in fits and starts. Someone who looks up from time to time. At the women chatting, at the citizens strolling, at the silly dog mobiles going by. You wouldn't know that beyond the blue eyes and blond hair and furrowed brow are a steady stream of questions.

Today I honor the questions. The messy and marvelous questions that beautifully mar my mind and moments. Today I ask these questions of myself, as a way of keeping things honest and fresh. As a way of keeping myself in line. Why do I come here?

I come here because this is my place. I come here because I can think here. And ask. I come here because adulthood and family and world have a way of sucking the individuality and childish spirit from our marrow and I will not have this. I will carve out a little space for myself and keep it sacred. I come here because otherwise I really might not ask these questions. And these questions? They are part of who I am. And hope to be.

And now. Now I ask this very question of you: Why do you come here to my blog?

Do you come here because you like to share in my successes and struggles? Do you come here because I offer a glimpse into a world you will never know? Do you come here because you are curious about parenthood or personhood or publishing? Do you come here because I make you think or ask or feel? Do you come here because you know me in real life and want to know what I'm up to? Do you come here because you don't like me and you want to watch me stumble? Do you come here because you like that I'm insecure just like you?

Why?

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Why do you blog? Why do you come to my blog? Even if you do not normally comment, I would so appreciate your thoughts here. I plan to leave this post up for a few days because I really want to know what brings you to blogging, and what brings you here to this particular place. (And also because I really need a bit of a break.) I plan to spend my mini pause visiting your blogs and responding to your comments because I miss doing these things tremendously.