Don’t Look Down!

My column went up today. It is my 24th. It’s somewhat hard for me to believe I am pushing on towards a year and 25+ columns now. Writing it has been great for me on many levels and most of them have come fairly easily.

Even the ones I labored over line by bloody line – columns which were anything but easy to actually write – were clear to me from the start. In other words, I knew exactly what I wanted to express and just had to wrestle over the words. Now as I stare into year 2, I don’t really have a clue what I will write about next, or next or next…

I’m not really panicked or even all that worried, because I feel that the columns have been getting better and better and I have faith in myself to keep the roll going. And sa B.B. King once sang, “You better not look down if you want to keep on flying.”

But there’s no doubt that I’ll have to dig a little deeper to keep them going because as I‘ve noted before, I’ve picked all the low hanging fruit. I’ve written about most of our day to day experiences and all the things I hit around here regularly..

Now I have to decide which direction to go. There are no shortage of stories to be told, but it is going to take some thought to decide which direction to head.. chronicling Beijing? Chronicling our lives? Chronicling a more general expat existence and all the issues that come with it? Probably some combination of all of the above, but I’m thinking I want go more and more into Beijing life, even stuff that doesn’t directly relate to being an expat per se. In part, I want to do that because just getting out and doing things and interacting with regular Chinese people is fascinating and fun and it inspires me and I need that.

I’m feeling a little slow moving, a little less inspired than a year ago. I suppose that’s natural and please keep it in perspective; everything is going great, we’re all well, happy, etc. I guess it’s just a form of sophomore slump. How can everything be as exciting this year as it was last?