Home again, home again

I wasn't sure why I've been balking so much at the idea of writing up what I know:
Because I have relatively few journalistic sensibilities. I chafe at those moments when I'm supposed to employ them. Like keeping a journal. Or a blog. (As I've said before, I am a terrible journal keeper.)

While I am a fan of nonfiction (reading it, writing it), journalism wants the whole story, all of the details, every questioning W answered. That inclination seems oppressive to me. The glut of it all. The sliver of the story I want, mixed into the soup of the rest of it.

I have notes and photos and documents gathered from my time in Lithuania, both from the fascinating class time and from the trips to the current towns that used to be the old family shtetls of Linkuva, Shilal, and Gorzd. I will share what I know. But it is taking me longer than I thought. (No, I don't need it to be "perfect," but I can only do this the way I do it.)

It's been said that when foreign writers come to Lithuania, Vilnius particularly, either they write quite a bit, or they can't write at all and aren't able to put it all down (whatever "it all" happens to be) until they get home (wherever "home" happens to be). As it turns out, I'm part of the second group.

I am just beginning to regain my sense of time, casual though it's always been. (I have started waking up in the sevens versus the sixes. When we get to the elevens, consider me un-jet-lagged.) I am still surprised at how much English I hear spoken around me in DC, and I'm somewhat less surprised at my difficultly in finding words (which tends to happen when I'm out of sorts). But I appear to be writing a bit. (Hey, look, it's a blog post!)

I meant this blog to be far more regularly updated and updated with the actualities of what was happening. Sometimes that happened, but usually, it was other stuff that got posted.

Eventually all these notes and photos and documents will be sorted and I'll figure out what I want to say about it. But before then, there will be blog posts with the glut of information.