Often, a new adventure can lead us to experience eagerness and anxiety simultaneously. This “Patricia Writes” blog is a new endeavor for me only in the sense that my musings and observations now have a home of their own. They’re no longer scattered across hundreds of asked-to-answer responses to Quora questions and volunteered responses to friends’ posts on their social media forums.

This blog will be a place that speaks to my love of writing. Here, that love takes the form of writing on a wide variety of topics in a spontaneous way, quite different from the essays and stories on https://patriciawrites.com. There, my love of writing takes the form of writing that is more fastidiously written, edited, and proofread. And so, I am delighted to be launching that website, its essays and stories, and this blog simultaneously.

Each week, we find new things to observe in our lives, new events or simply a new awareness of what has been around us for quite a while. Often, these are small things that are, nevertheless, worthy of our attention and reflection. Everyday experiences sometimes strike me as more important than what we assume is existentially momentous and, therefore, deserving of our full attention. We can find satisfaction in noticing a great egret in flight over a marsh, a colorful drawing by a two-year-old, or a mindful hour spent slicing, dicing, and measuring in anticipation of making a special meal. “Small things” are the important things in this blog.