Branch water. Well, it could be worse.
I have inflicted my musings on my wife, friends, and family for some time. Why should everyone else be spared? But that first step, choosing the name for this blog, is a bit like trying to write the first sentence of the Great American Novel. How can you know where it will take you? What if I get it wrong? I would hate to call it "My Favorite Things", then find I am motivated to write about rooting out cruelty and injustice.
But "Branch Water" has potential. If you believe Wikipedia, it can mean several things - water from a stream; water added to whiskey; water steeped with the branch of a Douglas fir, believed to be cleansed and purified. Each is an appropriate metaphor for where I would like my words to flow.
I naturally reflect on big topics - life, mind, spirit, love. But I like to follow them upstream - where does an impulse come from? What makes me feel strongly about a topic, and how is it other people can feel differently but equally passionate? This brings additional context and complexity to the musing, but can also bring clarity. These are not thoughts that fit on bumper stickers or in sound bites.
These are thoughts best mulled slowly - in a rocking chair, on a porch, in the evening with a close friend and a glass of bourbon and branch. Thoughts to be explored, not argued.
This first entry can be considered the pouring of such a drink. Not the drink itself, but a necessary step to the slow, reflective, and important work of contemplating the universe, being human, and being me.
