Have I mentioned Julia Cameron yet? She defines her book, The Artist's Way in a sub-title: "A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity". Because it's a project in twelve stages, people have mistaken it for the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not. And I think it is intended for civilians, that is, for people who are not necessarily writers or artists. But the people I know who have read it are not lay-people. McLuhan predicted that some day everyone would be an artist. That's happening, has happened, and the problem as he also predicted is, who will there be left to read and admire the artist when everyone is an artist? Case in point, the blog.

Everyone writes blogs now. Who wants to read them? Except I guess celebrity blogs - but they limit themselves to tweets, don't they? Or maybe a blog with a narrow focus, like a cooking blog, several of those, none, I suspect, as wildly successful as Julie Powell's riding on Julia Child's apron strings. The best-selling Book of Awesome began as a blog when Canadian writer Neil Pasricha was at a very low point in his life and set himself an assignment to think of something good that happened each day.

I'm no sure about my blog yet. It's a pump-primer, that I know. It's good discipline and useful preparation for my big trip. And I think it's beginning to serve as footnotes to the book I'm working on, about age. I mean, what else could my blog be? I am old and I am writing about what happens to me and what I'm thinking in my twilight years. I've actually quoted from one of my blogs - once - in my book, though I'm not sure whether it will stick.

Back to Julia Cameron. I read it and worked on it when I was still living up north (in Muskoka). There are some exercises she assigns that I don't think I could do now, living in a city as I do, with too many calls on me and too many distractions. But if it appeals to you, check out her assignment for Week 4. "Reading Deprivation" is a doozy. I actually did it twice, about a year apart. Giving up reading is harder than giving up booze, I think. I mean, books are an addiction. Readers used to share what was called a Gutenberg Complex. I'm not sure what you'd call it now since print is going the way of the dodo bird.

Think about it.

Thanks to a comment from "Pat" I found and listened to a song by John Denver, "Some Days Are Diamonds, Some Days Are Stones". She responded to my complaints about a day that had turned out to be a frustrating obstacle course. I like John Denver but I didn't know that song. Pat says she keeps a little bowl of pebbles with "diamonds" scattered among them, sparkly beads. Rhinestone buttons would be nice. That's a lovely idea, thank you.

I keep thinking of a line from that Rogers & Hammerstein song, from The King and I: "If you become a teacher/By your pupils you'll be taught." Not that I'm teaching you anything with my blather, but Pat has taught me something.

I think I stagger along from stepping stone to stepping stone (different kind of stone), clutching at signposts along the way to guide me or at least cheer me on. I'll give you another line, this one from Marshall McLuhan. He said "the price of eternal vigilance is indifference." I think he was referring to the Red Telephone, the one that was supposed to ring when World War Three was imminent - or something. McLuhan thought that the people assigned to be on the alert for the phone would get tired of being so tense and would gradually slump into inertia or indifference. That's a small price to pay, actually, and I don't think it's true. I think that the price of eternal vigilance is eternal vigilance. You can't ever let down.

"Don't give a inch." I think that's from Ken Kesey but I could be wrong. I often am. Still, it's another signpost to spur me on my way.

On my way to where? I guess I'll know when I get there. In the meantime, I'm on the look out for pebbles and rhinestones.