A Message in a Bottle

   This morning I set my alarm to get up early while everyone else is sleeping, the house is quiet, the cats lounging in a shaft of morning light.  I didn't get up to cook.  I got up so I could write before I cook.   I'm thankful. So thankful.
 I'm just happy to be here, Bob.
  I'm not sleeping well.  Poppet stories invade my dreams, wake me in the dark, trail behind the night as it leaves and bloom before my eyes in the light of day.
  I've made poppets for many years.   My fingers have shaped thousands.   I can make them with my eyes closed.  I can make them behind my back, underwater, in a boat or with a goat.
Poppets have been a constant through nearly two decades of this human's curriculum, the dark days and the light. I've made them through hopeless tears and with joyful abandon.   
   Poppets are bigger inside than out.  The number of poppets that fit on the head of a pin equals the number of ideas that fit on the head of a pin.  Yet, look what a single idea can do.
 
 I'm thankful for the journey I'm on. Many of you have traveled with me.  A few have been with me from the beginning. I'm thankful for you. My stories are yours too.
  Poppet stories, like poppets, are bigger inside than out. The books will be too. They won't defy gravity, but they will defy definition.  They will if I do this right. Chances are, I will.  I've certainly done my homework.  And I'll put my heart and soul and the best of everything I've learned into them.
  I know this, because I am already. 

  After the turkey, the shopping, the apocalypse, Santa and the New Year, I'll be asking you to help me launch this project.  I don't know how many of you are here. (I'm a little afraid to ask.) Writing this blog always seems a little like putting a message in a bottle.   But if you're reading this, you're very likely interested in what a poppet might have to tell us. 
A few of us can do a lot. Silly humans.

  I hope you find happiness today.  I love all of you. Thank you.