Letters From Dad

For a while now I've been thinking I would like my blog to have more focus, some sort of recurring theme. In order for that to happen I have to have write regularly about something that interests me but I've been rather uninspired. So I asked myself what is it that people write about and what do I do on a continuing basis which would provide fodder for blog entries? Then I noticed the yellow paper on my desk with my dad's writing on it.

My dad writes me a letter every week, sometimes more than one a week. He doesn't worry about whether or not he has anything interesting to say he just writes every week. I think it's his way of connecting with me. He not only writes to me every week, he also writes to my brother every week and has done so since we each left home for college over twenty years ago. It sounds like such a wonderful thing to do for your child write him or her a personal letter every week, a caring way to share your thoughts. Only the thing is my dad doesn't say anything in his letters. Once when visiting my brother a few years ago I found out he had stopped even opening the letters, though I think he reads them again now. When my brother and I lived together for a year my dad still wrote us each a letter, though they were by and large the same letter.

Still I think there must be something to these letters. They are almost always written on paper from a yellow legal pad in blue ink. I am going to try to blog about these weekly letters, it will cause me to sit down and really read each one I'm not sure what I'll learn from it but having a focus is what I'm really after. Of course it just occurred to me that my dad reads my blog and if I start blogging about what he writes then he will probably change what he is writing which would sort of ruin the whole point of it. So here I am starting a whole new blog just for this project. i didn't expect that to happen.