Wanderer is now A New Bridge!

Okay, it's taken me nearly two hours to figure this out. I'm new at blogger. Just in from AOL Journals. I'm hoping to find most of my friends here that have had to move this week. Most are doing it easily, while others are stressed from the time it taking or going to take to make this move.

I'm not a complainer, generally. But I'm allowing myself this one entry to be one. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

You see, my former journal was called Wanderer. I'd had it for three years. I was going to change the name this year, I just didn't know when. This time of transition seems like the perfect time to make that change.

Considering that my very last entry before I discovered I had to move from J-land was about crossing bridges, I took that as a sign. Even Patrick (Caregivingly Yours) in a comment (before anyone knew AOL journals was shutting down) prophetically noted "Paths cannot always be repaired or improved, rather the detour becomes the journey." Amen to that, Patrick!

I began writing about the small country bridge in early August, and rumor (and newspaper report) has it that it will be May before the new bridge re-opens. Although we are now having to drive many miles out of our way to get to work and back home again, my friends and I have decided to enjoy the new attraction by taking walks to check on its progress. I'll continue to post pictures and reflections as the months sweep by.

Just after I had emailed Patrick a response to his comment in my aol journal (I wrote "maybe I'll walk down to that bridge to see how it's going."), my young friend Marlene called and asked if I wanted to walk to the bridge with her and her mother. Her invitation couldn't have come at a more timely moment.

That's just what we did. It was about 5:00 pm, and the sun was 90 minutes from setting low enough to cause problems if I wanted to take some good pictures of the bridge. I brought my camera. We climbed a dirt mountain, admired the great digging machines, a pile of old wooden beams, and wondered if this bridge would be completed before May. We can only hope. The new bridge is going to much bigger than the old one... it is looking like a sturdy highway bridge.

I'm looking forward to seeing the friends I know here, and the new ones I'll surely be making here. I loved J-land, but I am one who generally goes with the flow. And now that I'm here, it doesn't seem like such a bad move after all. I just need to find out how to save all those pictures I had in aol pictures... do we lose those too? I know we lose the ones in Hometown File Manager. All those lovely animated .gif files. Any suggestions from you are welcome.

Alyson and Marlene, thank you for giving me this image to illustrate the direction I (we) should move ... forward, balanced, aligned, focused, and strong.

Funny, we didn't plan it this way, but I knew when I took the picture it was going to be the beginning of my new journal, A New Bridge.

Thank you for being there when there are bridges to cross.