I’m Proud!

Book shelves at the Truchas, New Mexico library

Yes, I’m proud. I just posted this, my 1000th essay here on my blog, salliebingham.com. The numbers of you, my readers, continues to grow.

I’ve changed and the site has changed since I started it in 2002. Then, I thought of it primarily as a way to draw attention to each of my new books, perhaps inspiring a few readers to buy or come to one of my readings or my writing workshops. My next workshop will be at the Carnegie Center in Lexington in May [Save the date: May 19-21!].

But as I’ve come to know some of you, I’ve found my goals for the blog change as I learn something of your interests.

What a diverse group you are! Most of you are from many parts of Kentucky but there are also occasional responses from far corners of this country and even of the world!

Old friends I haven’t seen in years keep in touch with me in this way, leaving comments on this site and primarily on Facebook, anywhere from a handful to hundreds on each post. And I’m particularly grateful that you haven’t forgotten—although one of my oldest friends refuses to use the internet and so we have phone calls, once a month, instead.

Generous and heart-felt responses to my struggle to save Hopscotch House, where some of you have been on retreats, help me to keep going as the fight closes in on its one year anniversary with no resolution.

Among the most read of my posts are descriptions and discussions of Wolf Pen Mill Farm in Prospect, Kentucky, and the reasons I put it into conservation easements years ago, the way we manage fields and woods, and the careful renovation of the 19th century over-wheel grist mill.

You’ve also enjoyed my many posts on train travel, which makes me wonder if some of you have tried this way of getting around rather than flying everywhere. My post on riding The Lake Shore Limited and The Southwest Chief have appealed to a lot of you.

So as I go forward, I’ll be thinking of more ways to write about preserving our precious land and becoming more conscious of the ways we chose to travel—and, more broadly, of the ways we chose to consume.

In this time of turmoil your responses about keep on keeping on creating art, writing, exploring and experimenting remind me when I need it most that we will not be moved.

Since my life is in books, I’m including here a photograph of the Truchas Library in a tiny town in the mountains here in Northern New Mexico. The library holds ten thousand books, and also runs a child care center and weaving and painting workshops. It is a beneficiary of New Mexico’s House Bill 27, “The Freedom to Read Law,” just passed, which mandates that “all public libraries follow their current written processes for challenging book removal from their shelves or adopt such policies or lose state funding.” The law is designed to “protect the freedom to read and protect librarians from being prosecuted for making development decisions” such as what new books to order.

The ongoing attempt to control our thinking by controlling what we read will not succeed here in New Mexico.

Is this true elsewhere?

In Writing