The bridge metaphor

You have probably heard of the runner's high. I don't run, but sometimes when I am on my walk, and I am very late, I sort of trot along for awhile. The closest I come to a "high" doing that is when, for a few seconds, neither my feet nor my ankles hurt. Curiously, though, I do frequently experience a walker's high, or more specifically, a blogger's high. When I'm out walking a few miles and ice isn't blowing in my face, the fresh air stimulates me. I take joy in the world around me. I become attuned to the Universe. I start to think of really good blog ideas. Then I get really excited by these blog ideas. I simultaneously compose them in my mind and try to memorize them as I go. It's a wonderful, very creative, inspired feeling. And the more ideas I come up with the more new ideas come to me until they are delightedly and nerve-wrackingly piling up on me.

This is where we come to the rickety bridge analogy. This blogging high is like climbing a high, rickety bridge. It's slightly terrifying, very precarious, and absolutely lovely. But the bridge is wildly unsafe, and each new blog idea takes the bridge even further beyond its load bearing capacity. I can't stop the thrilling rush of new ideas, and usually around the fourth or fifth blog outline it all comes crashing down.

Here I am among the shattered remains of the rickety bridge. It's usually about eight hours later that I do my salvage work on that fallen bridge. Here, this looks familiar. I think it might be part of the railing. what was I thinking when my hand glided along it? Here's a piece of something about a letter to a publishing syndicate. I wonder what that one was about. Was there something about a cardinal? Rome? Sandwiches? Surely there is a piece of this detritus I can still make use of.

Ah yes, I remember. Here's a big piece of it now. It was that blog idea about the rickety bridge metaphor.