I hardly know what to say

except that had I known what the response would be to my launching this Blog, I would have done it 5 years ago (and every day since). It was always the encouragement that I got from you that not only kept me going when it seemed I'd never get myself out of that into which I had gotten myself, but kept me writing to you to tell you about my travails. (I got some French in there without even leaving English!). I have also discovered that sharing with my friends is not as selfish as I thought it must seem (me me me, I am writing to you you you about me me me), because what it really does is lead to exchange. Actually, I have never heard anyone be accused of being selfish for sharing with their friends. Let's say self-centered for bringing attention to oneself. I would never have heard the things so many of you who received the link to "The Sisyphus Journals" yesterday told me had I not written. I felt so grateful to you for reading me and then taking the time to tell me your own stories or your response. As someone else said, there are some other Blogs that need to start. Who would have thought that the Internet would bring us back to writing to communicate directly with other people, and caring about how we write?

My own heart swelled ten sizes that day.

Now, as for the suggestion that I include my old garden updates as posts and then backdate them to catch up with today, I think that I will merely sprinkle them in among today's musings and tales, with dates provided for historical accuracy, and treat them as part of today's ongoing great slog forward. It's easier than learning how to backdate posts. No, I'm just kidding. It's historically more honest.

Also, there was a complaint that all I do is talk about my garden and that I do it en anglais dans "ces mails auxquels [on] ne comprend rien!!!!!!!!!!!!!" There were more exclamation points, but it's hard to count them. My finger is too big. Je te rassure, je parlerai de "moi et de ma petite famille". That's sort of a little bit obliquely the point of all of this. I leave nothing out. Et, je ferai des efforts (promis) de le faire de temps en temps en français, ce que je parle couramment et beaucoup (surtout) mais mal!

And so, moving on...

I have long-since discovered that there are two essential things that are necessary to progress in any building or garden project. The first is money. The second is the ability to commit to a decision. There is a third, unfortunately, and that's the ability to have an idea worthy of your imaginings, or at least just like all that great stuff out there that other people have done, but that you must not copy or forever know it wasn't your work and you must not bathe in the glow of the compliments, as nice as it would feel. The third is really part of the second; if you know you have a good idea, it's considerably easier to commit to it.

Giving up on money, which eludes me, and -- God only knows -- my husband, I am going to dedicate myself to the development of ideas, figuring that if I can rally enough concentration -- there will be quiet times when I am not allowed to write, and I have to sit and draw (pout) -- I will at last access that previously inaccessible realm of my creative genius (Sh!), or at long last and least settle for getting the green side up and taking pride in nice thick weeds, squinting to make them look just like the emerald carpet of perfectly green and uniform blades of grass for which I have longed and labored. Some of you know perfectly well from whence Sisyphus comes.

And, to answer another question, oui, cela corresponde à ma philosophie de vie, developed through all those long hours of toil, all those tons of rock I extracted from our soil and carried to the dump, all the time that this labor of the body and hands allowed for reflection and the turning of the mind's little wheels, and the years of thinking about family and stepfamily, love and the absence of it, hate and resentment and the abundance of that. But don't despair, for I have not yet succumbed. Remember, hope and love spring eternal and nowhere is that more apparent than in one's garden. And if hope fails, you can always pull a plant out and start over! People, too.

Remember, one must imagine Sisyphus happy.

I have to go get the house a little bit presentable. People are actually coming to prepare an estimate for the renovations and work might even begin soon on this poor wreck of a house.

"La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à remplir un coeur d'homme. Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux."