Post 1000

Posted on 04/04/2021 by Andrew Reynolds

Yes, this is the magic post.  1,000 posts seems like a lot.  I did write each one.  Some are better than others, and a few have pictures.  I remember as a young boy that I only like books that had pictures.

These days I try to use poetry to create images in the mind.  Actually drawing pictures isn’t one of my gifts.  When I started this blog, I didn’t really consider myself a poet – more of a prose writer who wanted to just have a way to consistently write stuff.  I did my first post to this blog on April 13, 2011.

Yeah, I had to look that up.  That was ten years ago.  The name of this blog, “Andrew’s View of the Week,” originally was me writing about Easter week after reading one of my favorite Bible scholars, Marcus Borg’s book, “The Last Week.”  My faith has always been based around the events of the last week of Jesus’ life and Borg’s book really opened my mind up to a lot of new things.  Seemed natural at the time to try and write about it.

I didn’t stay focused on that for too long and started writing about other things.  In that first year I wasn’t very consistent in publishing schedules and kept trying to figure out what it was I was trying to do with this blog.  I wasn’t even sure I’d keep it up.

Then in December 2011 my life took a strange turn when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.    Cancer is a scary word and treatment for cancer is at best an anxiety generator and at worse life threatening.  I was one of the more fortunate cases as it was caught early and radiation treatment was all I needed.  In the nine years since treatment, there has been no sign of recurrence.

Treatment did have a physical impact as well as a big emotional impact on my life and writing.

As I started treatment I felt the need to write what was happening and in the spring of 2012 I started writing more regularly here.  My first writings were most about the cancer, but soon I drifted off into other topics.  After awhile I settled into a weekly personal essay about something.

I’ve never had a consistent theme in my writing.  Mostly I just sit at the keyboard and write about whatever I’m thinking about that week.

Which is why I’ve never changed the name of this blog.  “Andrew’s View of the Week,” is still that – my view on whatever is going through my brain that week.

I’ve added to that over the years with my Friday wisdom posts and my modest attempt at humor, plus the occasional “Wednesday – something” post where I show something I’ve done recently in the workshop, garden or the rare picture of my cats.

Along the way, I tried to write a book about my cancer experience.  It was going to be a prose book with a lot of research – you know my experience along with the current medical information on prostate cancer.

I couldn’t write it.  Every time I sat down to write about my experience, it came out as a poem.  In fact, I started writing a lot of poetry.

Then one day, Heather and I were in a used book store when I found myself in the poetry section and came home with two poetry books, the collected works of William Carlos Williams and “The Weight of Snow” by B.L. Bruce.

A few years after reading Bruce’s book, I wrote a poem I titled, “The Weight of Clouds,” which other than the play on the title has nothing to do with the book or this post.

It wasn’t long after buying those books that I started to read more poetry, write more and even posted a few poems.  I did write a poetry book based my cancer experience and now am writing a new collection of poems based on the book of Mathew, which is taking forever to complete.

I am a slow poet. I’m not one of those poets who sits down and knocks out a poem a day.  Half of the poems I start, I delete and a completed poem is subjected to endless editing.  Not all the poems I write make it onto the blog.  There are times I generate a lot of poems and have long dry spells when the words just don’t coalesce into an image that works.

All my poetry is about trying to create an image or a feeling in the reader’s mind.  Words are my colors and shapes.  Words are my texture and perspective.  Words are my tools that transfers the image in my head to yours.

When I started writing this blog I was a software engineer in the midst of a good career and now I’m retired and living in a new city.

But this blog is still part of my life as is poetry, marquetry, and creativity in general.  I have long been convinced that it is through our creative efforts that we are connected to the divine and the great mysteries of the universe.

Where to from here? No idea.  Long ago I made a choice on this blog to announce any future writing plans or what I might post here.  Likely I’ll continue to post here.

But each week brings something so you’ll just have to check back later to see what is going on with Andrew this Week.

About Andrew Reynolds

Born in California Did the school thing studying electronics, computers, release engineering and literary criticism. I worked in the high tech world doing software release engineering and am now retired. Then I got prostate cancer. Now I am a blogger and work in my wood shop doing scroll saw work and marquetry.
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55 Responses to Post 1000

  1. zestofthoughts says:
    05/19/2021 at 7:59 pm

    Hats off.keep the ink flowing

    Liked by 1 person

  2. stelorafedie101blog says:
    05/06/2021 at 6:50 am

    Congrats! Such a great blessing for having a 1000 posts. I cannot
    imagine myself having these huge posts. Keep on writing! God bless you more🙏 🙏🙏

    Liked by 1 person

  3. KK says:
    04/15/2021 at 12:18 pm

    Congratulations 🎉

    Liked by 1 person

  4. tristramouma says:
    04/11/2021 at 4:35 am

    This is a powerful experience, thanks for sharing.🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  5. Dave Foyle says:
    04/07/2021 at 6:01 pm

    Congrats on your 1,000th post! Quite a milestone, with many twists and turns over the last 10 years.

    Can’t wait to see your April 2031 2000th post! In fact, can you just jump ahead to your April 2031 post — maybe throw in some info about current stock prices, etc. I think that post might get a lot of interest! 🙂

    thanks for sharing your thoughts – always enjoy reading the blog.

    Liked by 3 people

  6. Vivi says:
    04/07/2021 at 3:38 pm

    Congratulations! You made it!

    Liked by 3 people

  7. Chronicles of a Blogaholic says:
    04/06/2021 at 12:56 pm

    Andrew, congratulations. I didn’t know the back story to your blogging. I began following you in 2015 when I created my Blogaholic page. Thanks for sharing your stories and have enjoyed following you the past six years. Take care.

    Liked by 3 people

  8. Sheila Landry Designs says:
    04/06/2021 at 8:28 am

    Congratulations! I have come late to the party, but I enjoy your posts a lot. I will certainly keep reading! 🙂

    Liked by 3 people

  10. Diane Henders says:
    04/05/2021 at 8:55 pm

    Congratulations – what a milestone! I’ll look forward to lots more of your “views of the week”. 🙂

    Liked by 3 people

  11. Debra says:
    04/05/2021 at 7:51 pm

    My blog is about the same age as yours, but I’m nowhere near 1,000 in posts. I admire your persistence in staying with it through some very difficult and challenging times, Andrew. I enjoy your eclectic posts and particularly enjoy seeing all of your projects fulfilled. Keep writing and sharing. You have gifts to share.

    Liked by 4 people

  12. Baydreamer says:
    04/05/2021 at 7:47 pm

    Congratulations, Andrew, on your 1000th post! That’s awesome, and I’m also happy to read that the cancer hasn’t returned. Keep on doing what you’re doing here because we all look forward to what you have to say. 🙂

    Liked by 3 people

  13. Bette A. Stevens says:
    04/05/2021 at 5:35 pm

    Congratulations, Andrew! Thanks for sharing your story.

    Liked by 4 people

  14. Dave says:
    04/05/2021 at 2:54 pm

    Congratulations, Andrew! Really enjoy your weekly musings. I hope you take pride in this major milestone of commitment to your writing. I just read an essay about short-story writing, and the author said too many writers leave their original writing medium behind, as if they only needed it as a short-term springboard to something bigger or more formal (i.e. poetry, novel). I’m glad to sense you’ll continue your blog no matter the success of your poetry.

    Liked by 3 people

  15. Mama's Empty Nest says:
    04/05/2021 at 12:33 pm

    Congrats on the 1000 post and 10 years milestone! A lot of bloggers don’t stick around for that long. I don’t remember how I found your blog or how many years I’ve been following you, but I always enjoy all of your posts — even the corny but funny jokes! 😉 From one meandering subject writer (and cancer survivor) to another, I’m glad you are continuing to write, Andrew.

    Liked by 4 people

  16. Pied Type says:
    04/05/2021 at 9:24 am

    Congrats on hitting 1,000! Do you ever wonder, as I have, how long a book all those posts would make? WP gives us a word count on each post, but I want to see a total count, just for grins.
    I put all my cancer stuff in a separate blog. I was thinking of it more as just a journal to keep track of dates, treatments, reactions, etc.

    Liked by 4 people

    • Andrew Reynolds says:
      04/05/2021 at 11:29 am

      Well, I try to have an average of 500 words per essay post but most time I go over that, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that I have close to 200,000 words here.

      I’ve tried doing a second blog but my brain doesn’t want to work that way. Still, I’ve been thinking I might do a second blog for my woodworking. Now that I’m retired and have the time for it.

      Liked by 1 person

  17. Franknbean says:
    04/05/2021 at 9:19 am

    Joining in late.
    Thank you for sharing your thoughtful contributions to the blog sphere.

    Here’s to your next 1000 entries.

    Liked by 4 people

  18. Donna Cameron says:
    04/05/2021 at 8:41 am

    Congratulations on your first thousand! I’ll look forward to the next.

    Liked by 4 people

  19. Teressa Clark says:
    04/05/2021 at 6:54 am

    Congratulations!!! So glad you’ve stuck with it. More glad I found you.
    Best wishes on the collection of poems from the book of Matthew.

    Liked by 4 people

  20. Spark says:
    04/05/2021 at 5:01 am

    Inspirational achievement. Others will definetly get motivation to write more blogs. Thank you.

    Liked by 3 people

  21. robertawrites235681907 says:
    04/05/2021 at 2:01 am

    Hi Andrew, I haven’t been following you for long in terms of the life of your blog, but I enjoy your interesting chatty posts about life. I haven’t seen a poem for a while but I’m sure one will pop up sometime. Congratulations on 1, 000 posts.

    Liked by 4 people

  22. davidprosser says:
    04/05/2021 at 1:51 am

    Your blog has evolved nicely over the years I’ve been following you, Andrew. This is a HUGE Milestone and I congratulate you sincerely. Keep it up.
    Hugs

    Liked by 3 people

  23. jfwknifton says:
    04/04/2021 at 11:42 pm

    Congratulations!!! Here’s to the next thousand !!

    Liked by 5 people

  24. slpsharon says:
    04/04/2021 at 8:56 pm

    You write pretty darn well. I know I’m not a consistent reader, but I like what I read. My uncle’s just about all battled and beat prostate cancer. After the oldest got it, the rest had their doctors watching out for it. There were five of them. The one thing they all mentioned was exhaustion.
    Always very tired during and after it.
    As you know, I’m an eclectic writer at best. So I recognize a fellow subject wanderer easily.
    Keep it up Andrew. Your doing great.

    Liked by 6 people

  25. dorannrule says:
    04/04/2021 at 8:38 pm

    It is so interesting to learn how your blog evolved. Keep on writing Andrew. You are good at it in whatever the form you choose.

    Liked by 6 people

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