I burnt the muffins

What is a metaphor after all?


Jog on over to Wikipedia and prepare to experience some minor brain melt in the explanation.


"Her eyes were glistening jewels". Okay.  Is that like "Life is like a pan of burnt muffins.  Some days are hard and crunchy on the bottoms but still have a yummy soft center.  While others are like cinder through and through"?


Where's the metaphor? she asks snickering all the while. Her pan of burnt muffins, or rather her life, was two steps from the garbage pail and turning more stale by the moment.


 Really? That's the best I can do? Where's the emoticon tab? I need a few LOL's and maybe a wink:wink or two!

The burnt muffins metaphor occurred to me while out driving yesterday. Random errands on a bright Saturday afternoon. Nothing requiring brain power. A quiet, albeit unfocused jaunt through late-autumn suburbia. My own private Brigadoon where nothing seems to really change. Well, nothing except the seasonal decorations, a thought which popped in for a visit when I spied a neighbor and a guy-friend climbing ladders and unrolling miles of extension cords for the Christmas explosion of lights and animated blow up lawn displays which have overtaken our tiny sliver of the east coast.

The kids have been needling me to start a blog. Somewhere that I could go to let out some of the thoughts whizzing around in my mind. A place to leave behind the circumstances of the present - hence the burnt muffins.

Which brings me to a big question .... What's in a blog? Am I telling stories? Sharing history? Making stuff up? Re-posting other's work? Who is the audience or isn't there one? Are my muffins burnt because I was so focused on the outcome that I forgot to embrace the process? BTW - there's a college professor named Dr. Bellows laughing quietly somewhere at what I just wrote.

On the one hand I like that this space is something creative and expressive and hopefully, positive. What I don't like or what I don't get is why everything has to be shared and public. Are we such narcissists that leaving a trail of crumbs as we journey along, declaring every burp and wiggle for all to see, has become some kind of pseudo-acceptance or validation in the absence of real interaction? I think too much, right? ::heavy sigh::

For my part in all this, I never was one to keep a diary. Pages dated and time stamped with snippets of day-to-day life. Journaling on the other hand has been a completely different exploration but my journals, like the phases of life, are disjointed with no beginning and no end. Jumbles of free form rants interspersed with specific, focused storm travelogues. If you don't know what that means there's no way I could explain. The "metaphor" either sinks in or floats on by.

So ... journal? Diary? Random? Focused? Silly? Serious? Truth? Make believe? Me thinks it's all good and since the decision to blog or not to blog was made when I created the account, the way forward is simple. Do or don't do. There is no try. (wha hahahahaaaa)
Onward . . . .