{"id":1042,"date":"2021-12-22T17:07:06","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T17:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/?p=1042"},"modified":"2021-12-22T17:07:06","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T17:07:06","slug":"a-word-to-my-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/a-word-to-my-readers\/","title":{"rendered":"A Word to My Readers"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I started this blog three-and-a-half years ago, my goal was simple and not terribly ambitious. I wanted to contribute a new entry once a month, every month. It didn\u2019t matter to me whether the entries were long or short; it didn\u2019t even matter whether their quality was first-rate or simply mediocre. I thought the discipline involved with writing about something new every month was the main thing. Over time, if I kept to this schedule, the quality would even out, and I\u2019d find myself participating in a certain process of discovery. That is, I\u2019d figure out what mattered enough to me to write about, and I could leave behind and unattended all those things that didn\u2019t matter at all.<\/p>\n

For the first two years, I more or less stuck to this schedule and was more or less happy with the results. Not only was I discovering what really mattered, but, thanks to comments from you, Dear Reader, I felt engaged in conversation with someone who found these matters to be important too.<\/p>\n

In the third year, the whole world seized up and started to perform a credible impression of that late, lamented madman, that wizard of the non sequitur,\u00a0 Professor Irwin Corey. In other words, the Covid-19 pandemic encircled the globe and upended every aspect of our daily routines.<\/p>\n

\"Photo
The World’s Foremost Authority and my personal candidate for immediate canonization, Professor Irwin Corey in an undated photo. “I feel more like I do now than when I first got here,” he once explained. After navigating the pandemic for two years, I’m afraid I’m beginning to understand what he meant.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Canada \u2026 oh, never mind. Suffice to say that under pressure of the pandemic, my blog production fell off somewhat. Yet I persisted, and in the end wrote new entries for more months than not. The same for this year that\u2019s now ending, right up to the month of September, when the wheels fell off completely.<\/p>\n

Two things happened then, one negative, the other positive. My desktop computer, a 10-year-old iMac suddenly died. It\u2019s always a drag when you have to buy a new computer, but the whole process was aggravated this time by what we\u2019ve decided to call supply-chain problems. In the end, I had to wait 10 weeks to replace my dead computer.<\/p>\n

At almost the same moment my computer expired, I met Whitney Smith, the prodigiously gifted writer and editor who, for many years, has published an online magazine called The Journal of Wild Culture<\/em><\/a>. Whitney invited me to contribute an article or two to his magazine, so while waiting for the new computer, I worked on revising a couple of pieces that had already appeared here as blog entries. I\u2019m delighted to report that one of them\u2014\u201cThin Places\u201d\u2014will appear in The Journal of Wild Culture<\/em> in the new year.<\/p>\n

I want to thank you, Dear Reader, for bearing with me in the meantime, and to let you know that the tradition of the monthly blog post is about to resume. I also want to wish you the very best for the holiday season that\u2019s already bearing down upon us and for the new year that\u2019s about to dawn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I started this blog three-and-a-half years ago, my goal was simple and not terribly ambitious. I wanted to contribute a new entry once a month, every month. It didn\u2019t matter to me whether the entries were long or short; it didn\u2019t even matter whether their quality was first-rate or simply mediocre. I thought the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"The author in 2007, standing in Drumcliffe Churchyard in County Sligo, Ireland, where W.B. Yeats is buried. Photo credit: Karen O'Connor.","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":null,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":null,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,129,17,72,75],"tags":[162,130,164,165,163],"yoast_head":"\nA Word to My Readers - Words and Wings<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When I started this blog three-and-a-half years ago, I decided to publish a new entry every month.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/a-word-to-my-readers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Word to My Readers - Words and Wings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I started this blog three-and-a-half years ago, I decided to publish a new entry every month.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/a-word-to-my-readers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Words and Wings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-12-22T17:07:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/karen-027-e1640189284451.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"661\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ed O'Connor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ed O'Connor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/a-word-to-my-readers\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/a-word-to-my-readers\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ed O'Connor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/#\/schema\/person\/c7a7df525329bbbfd28e13c68f087b96\"},\"headline\":\"A Word to My Readers\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-12-22T17:07:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-12-22T17:07:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/a-word-to-my-readers\/\"},\"wordCount\":559,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/#\/schema\/person\/c7a7df525329bbbfd28e13c68f087b96\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/a-word-to-my-readers\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/karen-027-e1640189284451.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"blog\",\"coronavirus\",\"discoveries\",\"Irwin Corey\",\"pandemic\"],\"articleSection\":[\"blog\",\"Coronavirus\",\"essays\",\"nature\",\"photography\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/a-word-to-my-readers\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/a-word-to-my-readers\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/edwardoconnor.ca\/a-word-to-my-readers\/\",\"name\":\"A Word to My Readers - 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