Introduction

Yesterday, as I stood folding chip wrappers in my place of employment, which happens to be a restaurant down on the Sydney harbor, with a splendid view of the harbor bridge, my mind, not being employed with the mundane concerns of keeping customers content, who at that particular moment were few and far between, had begun to wander, as I find it often does, and was now flooding with musings and imaginings and reflections and observations about life and people, and saying Goodbye, and learning to let go, and loving, and hurting, and growing up, and hoping, and laughing...
and writing.
I am a day-dreamer. And I had just bid goodbye to someone close to me in the wee hours of the morning, over a mug of steaming Long Black, in the deserted corner of a cafe. If you are familiar with Goodbyes, you'll understand the emotions one experiences when someone that is dear to you is going away. A close friend, a loved one, a family member. You get that dull ache on the inside; a knot of trepidation that only tightens, and an acute awareness of time, of the moments steadily ticking by, and the feeling of impending separation that hangs in the air. All the emotions you are forced to address AFTER saying goodbye are almost harder to bear... you are empty inside. The sights and sounds that used to seem so pleasant and enjoyable now suddenly feel foreign to you.
But, I digress. (See how easy it is for me to lose my train of thought!) As I was saying, on this particular day, the emotions described above were still very raw. So my mind was being very easily distracted from the work before me, to lines of poetry that kept flitting through my head. And now I am approaching the point to this little story.
Ever since I could read a novel on my own, and write a story without help, paper and ink have consistently been two of my favorite things. The smell of a fresh, glossy page as you flip open a new book; the tea-stained brittleness and dog-eared corners of an ancient, musty, well-loved volume. The fluid lines of dark ink staining a blank page. Or in this case, the jumble of plastic letters beneath my fingertips. Alphabets. Couplets. Stanzas. Phrases. Verses. Passages.  Definitions, origins. Words to me present an ocean of building blocks with which I can create my own realms and worlds and lands far away. The possibilities are endless!
I love finding words that compliment one another; words that fit neatly beside each other, and others that flow smoothly in a line of poetry. I love discovering a word or phrase that defines an emotion I knew existed, but couldn't describe. Suddenly a new window opens up. Words give life and breadth and depth to the empires of thought we build in our minds. That is, if we choose to write them down, and record them for others to read. Because, I think, in that lies a great opportunity to learn. We only have one life. And soon it is over. Some people can live and breathe for a whole lifetime, and no one ever knows them, really gets to know them. Others never speak, or never get the chance to say what they think, or verbalize the dreams they keep alive, but deep down inside, tucked away, invisible to the rest of the world. And no one knows they're there. But every single person, no matter the outside, has an immense supply of thought, of wonderings and imaginings and observances and hopes and dreams and fears locked up inside them that only they have the ability to unlock. And there, a danger lurks.
We can build worlds of thought in our  minds that, unchecked and uncharted, can lead to our demise. We may take a certain view, argue it over in our heads for a time, convince ourselves of its truth or validity, and come to a conclusion - arrive at an opinion, all without uttering a single word. We form our own rules of what is and what isn't. Yet, what if this process is full of errors? What if I am wrong? How will I know someone understands what I think and feel unless I say so?
In writing down and recording some of my thoughts and feelings, using words to interpret them as accurately [and creatively as I can], I do become slightly more vulnerable. But again, you only live once. And in writing down your thoughts and feelings and the emotions you feel from things like goodbyes and hellos, or deaths, or separations or friendships and moments and joys and sorrows, it helps you to keep check on them, and creates a relatively solid anchor for you, so as to keep you from drifting away into the doldrums of delusion.
If you are like me; that is, if speaking is something you are less enthused with than writing, and composing songs and ballads and poems and stories with bright cobalt ink and a clean piece of paper comes most naturally to you, then I hope you find something to relate to here. You see, everything that I've just taken the time to write down, first went through my brain at work yesterday, while I was still caught in the aftermath of emotion from saying Goodbye, and trying to focus on clearing dirty dishes from tables; and while I stood there in the quiet period, folding chip wrappers and looking out at the harbor bridge, dreaming, the thought "maybe I should start a blog" suddenly flashed across my mind.
So that is how this all began. And here I am! If I am making the wrong decision, I am sure I will find out in due course.
I am not a professional, and I certainly don't claim to have an adequate understanding of proper Grammar and correct writing styles, nor a degree in the history and the inner workings of the English Language, nor am I an experienced or cultured Poet. ;)
But I do know this: when my Mother first introduced me to Poetry at ten years of age, it stuck with me, and my appreciation for the idea of arranging   words in order to evoke something or stir something in me has only grown. I love reading Poetry and Literature, especially the classics, and  [attempting] to compose my own bits of it, out of the wealth of thought I myself entertain about life, love and laughter; pain, hurt and growth; salvation, joy and surrender, and other things that present themselves along the way.
We're all on a journey, and here are a few glimpses into mine.