Today, as I was leaving the office and walking down the sidewalk/hill to the parking lot, I heard a sound I haven't heard in years.

Honk!  Honk!

No, not car horns, though it is, indeed, very rare to hear car horns here in Small Mountain University Town.  Nicely laid-back, the drivers here are.

Geese.

I looked up, scanned the skies, and saw them--a pair of geese, necks outstretched and wings spread, soaring southwest.

Lubbock, Texas, has its problems.  But every spring, and every fall, for weeks on end, we would wake up in the pre-dawn darkness to the sound of geese honking.  Hundreds of them.  Thousands of them.  Gearing up to head on to their next stop in their migration; heading northward in the spring, southward in the fall.

During the daylight, the skies were filled with them.  Flock after flock, arrowing in the proper direction, all gathered together in black clouds across the sky.

Lubbock was perfectly positioned in the migratory flyway for this bi-annual display (biennial?).  There were days when we'd just stand in the back yard of our little duplex, surrounded by flowers, OmegaDad's arm around me, our heads tilted back, just watching them soar across in overlapping v-formations.

We loved it.

Today's sound was a sweet flashback to our first year together, rousing nostalgic emotions.

Then, as I continued down the sidewalk, I glanced at the mountains, and saw a layer cake:  grey clouds scudding across the sky, snow-covered mountain peeping out beneath them, and then grey-white clouds, with banners of snow, flitting before the mountain, and a row of pine trees framing the bottom.  I so wished I had a camera; it was breathtaking.

(I also wished I could get that same view without the power lines crossing my visual field...alas, as I moved down the hill, while the power lines moved so that they were no longer criss-crossing the mountain and cloud layers, the angle on the pine trees shifted, the clouds moved in, and the mountain disappeared behind a wall of gray and green.)

So Julie, over at the Ravin' Picture Maven, tagged me with this meme, whereby I'm supposed to give five reasons I blog.

One reason is so that I can write down snippets, snapshots, flashes of life like the one above.  The blog is the modern counterpart of the Victorial journal, with the addition of An Audience (potentially).  And maybe some conversation.  Being able to snatch these fleeting moments, and actually write them out, makes them more permanent.

It's also a way to document the dotter's childhood.  In this manner, it's akin to those "My First Days" books that crowd the shelves in Hallmark stores or Michael's stores.

I could do both of those by hand, of course.  I could keep a journal, just like all those Victorian ladies, in which I carefully wrote down each of these vignettes, with maybe a pressed flower or two.  I could actually buy one of those "My First Days" books, and carefully fill in the scripted blanks on the pages, dutifully decking the scrapbook-style layouts with photos.  But I find typing much quicker and easier and more efficient at capturing my thoughts, with the added touch of not giving me writer's cramp.

I like to write essay-like musings about current events.  I have always had a slight wist after a daily column in the local newspaper, doing exactly that.  Using a blog, I can not only muse about them, but I can link to the original article, or to other peoples' musings on the same subject.  In this way, it becomes a tapestry of thoughts, and it gives me a glimpse into how other people see the same thing.  A kaleidoscope, an electronic version of the tale of the elephant:  we all see the elephant, but we describe it differently.  And, if I miss the trunk, well, someone else out there, in the link trail, will have seen the trunk, and discussed it, and I can go back and re-view the original story or event with an additional facet exposed.

Then there's the conversation.  I started out on email lists, newsgroups, and message boards.  The conversation moves quickly there, with fast give-and-take, but the conversation on a blog moves a bit more slowly (or, at least on this blog!).  There seems to be less of a tendency to blurt out one-liners or let the flames take over (at least on this blog!).  The essay-style seems to prompt respondents to take a little more time, and craft a little bit more of a thought-out response.  I like that.

And then there's the multi-media aspect.  I can link to pictures, without having to cut them out, or arrange them just so, or worry about things like acid-free paper.  I can plop in, if I so desire, a snatch of music.  Or, as I did yesterday, drop in a clip from YouTube, or a video of my own, or a slideshow.  It's very versatile in that manner, though I don't take advantage of it as much as others do.

Now I'm supposed to tag five other bloggers.  Hmmmm...I'll go for:

Singing Bird
OmegaGranny
Boomerific (hey, check out her recent series on adoption in a "perfect world"--lots of good comments, lots of good thoughts)
Miss Snark (she won't do it--she doesn't even know I exist!  But I thought it might be fun if she ever did catch wind of it.)
Homesick Home

(I would tag Johnny, but he wouldn't do it.  Pout.  I'd really be interested in hearing his answers.  So this is an unofficial tagging, Johnny--if you feel like doing it, go for it!)

Technorati: Geese, springtime, why blog?