My first blog

This is my first blog ever. This is a big week for me-- it's also the week I'll get my first ever cell phone. I feel like I'm leaping into the Future. Ack! I'm a little scared of this blog, to tell the truth. I think I'll keep this short and sweet and then look at it tomorrow and see what I've gotten myself into.

I will say that Ocean in a Saucer is a reference to a poem by Rumi, who was born in 1207 in Afghanistan, which was at that time part of the Persian empire. (I just got that from the preface of my Essential Rumi book, which sits at my desk under a sign that says, "When you have the urge to go online, READ RUMI" because I'm good at wasting time online, and Rumi always reminds me what really matters.) His poetry is about reaching that place where you feel the fire and wind and water of existence wild inside you... at least that's how I read it. Once, when I felt this way, before I'd heard of Rumi, I compared the feeling to trying to fit the ocean inside a Tupperware container. Then, years later, I stumbled across this Rumi quote about trying to make a saucer contain the ocean. (And I bet, if Tupperware existed back then, he just might have substituted Tupperware for saucer, like me.) So I decided to name my blog Ocean in a Saucer because I think that writing books is like trying to fit a raging, deep, sparkling, infinite thing like the ocean into a few hundred pieces of ink-spotted paper.

That's all for now. Bye!