I was once a prolific blogger. I had a couple of blogs under the pseudonym “PartsnPieces,” and I once wrote a collaborative blog (ProfHacker) for the Chronicle of Higher Education. I return here again today after a six-year absence because I miss this form of writing. I write on other forms of social media, but the things I want to write there are not appropriate for those audiences. Instagram wants only the photos and hashtags. (I suppose narrative-by-only-hashtag is a thing.) Twitter? I’m not really out there any more. TikTok? No thanks. Facebook? I tend to write a there, but my contacts are so diverse on that platform, that what I write misses 3/4th of the people that follow me. So I come back here. Maybe I’ll write something interesting.
The picture. I once drove to El Paso, Texas, with my sister and brother-in-law. About half way there, they wanted to stop and stretch their legs, as it’s a 9-hour drive from where we live. We pulled over to the side of the road, maybe it was a rest stop, but I don’t really remember. We walked up to the top of a small hill, and there this was. Someone had carved this name into a piece of concrete. I don’t know that it was MY name carved there, but it is my name. How bizarre that my name would be carved into concrete in a place I’d never been and in a place that I’m unlikely to ever find again.
At the time, I was just surprised in a WTF kind of way, but today, maybe 15 years later? I’m stumped. What are the odds that on a trip I’d not planned to take that I would find my name carved into something off any typical path. It’s not that my name is that common. It’s an older name, to be sure, and there are folks with this name, but not that many. Again, what are the odds? Part of me wants to go try and find this again, but odds are greater that I’d never find it. I’m imaginative, but even I can’t figure this one out. Any thoughts what the universe might have been telling me at that time? Now? Leave some thoughts below.