Seven Days

 

I found myself face to face with an old friend last week, digitally speaking. 

Threw Mike’s Eyez is a local blog written by Woodbine resident Mike Hartley. I discovered it back in the day when HoCoBlogs had an aggregator page and one could browse through what was currently available in the local blogosphere.  I’ve pointed you in his direction several times before, most recently, in 2019:

I was inspired by this from Threw Mike’s Eyez blog:

*My goal for tomorrow is to fill a trashcan of old junk and get rid of it. Well, I do have a lot more goals than that, but that might be the hardest.*

A quick glance at Hartley’s LinkedIn page reveals a lifetime in the newspaper industry, including some treasured years working for Patuxent Publishing  in that building I love to write about. I also learned that he’s been writing his blog since 2014. 

That’s persistence.

It looks like he strives to write every day. Sounds familiar, huh?

Hartley brings his skills as a professional photographer to his blogging endeavors. He knows how to get just the right shot and just where to place it within his narrative posts. Like the yeast that leavens the bread, his photographs bring everything together and make it better, somehow. He has a light touch.

I love his thoughtfulness, his self-deprecating humor. I don’t think you can come away from his posts without thinking a little bit about life and how you want to spend it. And there’s definitely an undercurrent of gratitude in there as well.

Often his posts end with a collection of Random Thoughts of the Day. Those alone are often “worth the price of admission” as folks used to say. Here’s an example from 1/24/22.

Random Thoughts of the Day

• Learning is fun. Wish I learned that lesson earlier on in life.
• I feel a sense of urgency all the time now.
• Sometimes there are treasures in old cardboard boxes.
• I’m trying to will myself to feel better with mixed success.

I get the feeling that Hartley’s blog is a discipline, a practice of sorts. He’s on a journey and he’s deeply aware that he’s on a journey and he’s offering a neighborly invitation for you to be a welcome observer.

Every single day.

EMILY: "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?"

STAGE MANAGER: "No. Saints and poets maybe...they do some.” 

― Thornton Wilder, Our Town