This is GRENAMIER.COM

I just went to go check on my daughter, Princess. She fell asleep hanging on to a white hotel towel she calls her “blankie.” She always has her blankie with her when she goes to bed. Being a towel, however, it’s not warm enough so I usually put another blanket on her. Later, she will kick it off of her in her sleep and I’ll put it right back. Repeat ad nauseam.

Every single time I put the blanket on her, though, it reminds me of my paternal grandmother. When she passed away, part of the grieving process included a private ceremony for the family in the funeral home. After my Dad spoke, the funeral director brought a couple of very fancy blankets to the podium. He said (in a poor summary of a beautiful speech) that when we’re little and our blankets slip off of us in our sleep, it’s our parents who come in and put the blankets back so that we keep warm and stave off the cold. At this time, it was pretty much our last chance to be with my grandmother’s casket before it was sealed for the long trim back to her burial in Vietnam. Our last opportunity to say thank you and that we loved her and would always remember her. Also, these blankets he had with him, there at the podium, were for us to put on my grandmother to keep her warm for the long journey home.

Now, part of me thinks it feels a little weird to think of the deceased while I’m with my daughter. The rest, however, really just goes quiet and watches this tiny pink soul breathing under a pink blanket in a pink room full of princesses.

She just turned five. We (should) still have a lot of time left on this world together. For all the things I might do for her or that she might need from me, this blanket stuff seems like the simplest thing. Yet, ever since that speech by Mr. Lee, I feel like even these are some of the most important moments I’ll share with her.

And she’ll probably never know.

Part of why I don’t blog much is that sharing what I think of isn’t an action that comes naturally to me. Another big reason, is that this blog has to compete with my Moleskine.

If you’ve read my little profile blurb, you know that I love classic low tech stuff. Like fountain pens scratching out lines in a paper notebook. When I have to get something out of my head and into text, my weapon of choice for the past few years has been a Moleskine notebook. Yes, they’re expensive, but something about the paper, and the bookmark, and the handy pocket in the back is like crack on the fingers. I’ve gone through a bunch of them, scribbling thoughts down whenever on a whim. Of course, a lot of whims happen at work when I have little to do.

There are some problems with recording my thoughts this way. First: the ink gets all over my hands because I’m a lefty using a fountain pen. Second: the notebooks aren’t very searchable without a multitude of Moleskine hacks to overcome the limitations of non-digital paper. Third: everything I write is hidden away under an elastic band, never to be shared or debated.

I’ve gotten over the first problem. In fact, I like the “lived in” look that the ink smudges give the paper. The second doesn’t really bother me too much either. After all, notebooks are what they are. People who spend a lot of time and effort in maintaining systems to make their paper behave like binary bits seem unsure of what year they’re living in.

The third problem, however, does bother me. Although a lot of what I write in the notebook is private and should never be shared (screw all you “radical transparency” types!), there’s a lot there that needs to get out and seen by others. Not just because I’m a narcissistic jackhole, but because a lot of these thoughts need the benefit of perspective and cross-examination. I’d like people to read what I write, give me some feedback, and hopefully I’ll learn things I didn’t know or see things I didn’t see before. Perhaps the people commenting might also come away a little different.

The blog can help me with this. I’ll keep scribbling in my Moleskine, but when I hit on something worthy of a closer look, I’ll look at it a little more closely. Shine it up and throw it on the blog for all of my 0 readers to see.

<sarcasm>I can just hear the anticipation now!</sarcasm>