Training of sorts...

AOG, Madrid

I spoke with a friend today about this blog. She mentioned she'd been reading it and that she felt she knew me a bit better for having done so.

Up until today, the only three people I'm aware of who read this are my mother , my best friend in the US, and, occasionally, my partner.

I was flattered and curious to know what she thought of it, after all, what else are blogs such as this one but exercises in vanity?

She seemed to reinforce this idea.

"You have a lot of tags on this blog. I didn't realize you had so many opinions on so many topics", she said.

My reply was, of course, pedantic. "Yes, opinions are free so of course I have many of those". I then encouraged ger to write one, but she declined. "I have nothing to say, and that which I do, I leave for my diary". I love having a friend who keeps a diary. Such an old thing to do.

I used to keep one too when I was a kid. Somewhere along the line I stopped. Perhaps I was too tired of moving around?

This past weekend I attended the Sitges Film Festival. On the flight there, I read an interview of the Spanish singer Concha Buika. She said that adults spend their childhood getting ready for what they are going to do as grown ups. "Children who grow up to be firemen constantly climb trees and get into trouble for doing so. But they are just training".

She then said that songwriters, and writers in general, also got into trouble because of lying. They lie because they are training; they are working on their stories.

I loved that biographical and sociological analogy. I like to think of myself as a writer. Certainly I work as a journalist. It was refreshing to think of that period of time as "training".

Now guess what I spent my childhood doing? It wasn't sports...