Entry number 199

The rains have begun. It's time for hoods up in Portland. Locals almost never use umbrellas; we (for now I've begun to feel less a stranger, more local)--we wear hooded raincoats or hooded sweatshirts or rain hats. Now that it has started raining, we'll have intermittent rain till about next June. So we wear hoods or hats and walk on in the rain.

There's nothing special about this picture--don't know these people--wasn't doing anything with them. I just went out in the rain, put my hood up, had my pocket camera in my rain jacket pocket, snapped this on a street corner.

But this is my 199th Blip, so I know the next picture is a Blip-versary, and I'm all anxious about it. It has taken me a year and a half to get to 200 Blips, because I don't Blip every day, and I try very hard not to beat myself up for not Blipping every day. I fuss to myself about it: would Ruth Bernhard blip every day, if she were still alive? I ask myself. Would Edward Weston or Diane Arbus or Gordon Parks come up with one picture every day that they felt was worthy to post? And what about the writing? Would Arundhati Roy or Sylvia Townsend Warner or Barbara Kingsolver or Carol Ann Duffy write something every day that they felt they could post? Why am I doing this?

I wrestle with my native rebelliousness, my resistance to structure and rules and expectations. But here I am, wrestling and fussing, coming up to my 200th Blip, feeling all tense and irritable and full of self-doubt, as is my wont. What keeps me going is that I love what you do--you who post here, this virtual community of people I have never met--Spitzimixi, Bittersweet, Booky Goatherd, Annie, Barrioboy, Ceridwen, Chaiselongue, Berelaxed, Folkie, and so on. You do it so admirably. You write every day and post a picture every day, and you don't make a fuss. Your pictures and your words reflect your lives beautifully. You pull me in, and I follow, kicking and fussing but coming along. So don't be surprised if there's nothing from me tomorrow. But I'll probably get to 200 soon.