It's time for reflection at the end of the year, just past the solstice, when every day will be a little lighter. The nights are still long, but it's now easier to regard darkness as a time for the germination of ideas.

Looking back over a year's Jottings, I see that they reflect the news, the seasons, and my writing. In January I was worried if the press would remain free.

In the spring, I inevitably blogged about the reciprocal relationship between writing and gardening, which I know so well.

Two blogs were about Georgia O'Keeffe: one inspired by an exhibition about her way of dressing, and another by a new book about the nature of her feminism.

And, of course, there were a few blogs about the writing of memoir, since it's what I'm doing, in which I raised a few questions about the nature of memory.

What will 2018 bring, I wonder?  Read More 

When starting a blog, I wanted to get some inspiration and historical perspective from Eleanor Roosevelt's popular "My Day" column, which she began as First Lady in 1936. The technology was vastly different then - her columns were syndicated in newspapers - but her impulse as a blogger was not.

In less than an hour she wrote five hundred words six days a week for almost three decades. Her voice is frank and natural, and her idealistic and compassionate personality shines through. Writing more about her public than her private life - her outrage at violations of human rights, for instance - she also expressed her pleasure in gardening and family gatherings as well as her embarrassment at her foibles, like losing her driver's license after going through a stop sign.

So now I am ready to begin
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