Swimming Through the Currents
By Julie Seyler

BY JULIE SEYLER

All photos and art by Julie Seyler

In our launch post on November 19, Lo wrote about how we have been thinking, gestating, mulling, ruminating, and contemplating our blog for a year.  It’s true. But originally we were food-focused , primarily because Lo loves to cook and entertain, I love to photograph, and we both love to eat. We precede any meal with an icy martini- hers dirty with as many olives as possible, mine pristine and clean – a single olive may only grace my glass.

About this time (almost a year ago to the day), we also decided to treat ourselves to a four-day jaunt to Madrid – basically to see how many tapas we could consume.

And, OK the Prado, Reina Sofia, and Thyssen-Bornemisza museums were on my to-do list as well, but Lo was thrilled with the amenities of the Palace Hotel, especially after she discovered Hemingway used to drink martinis at that same bar in the ’30s.

The trip was short (December 6-11), sweet and fabulous.  Without a doubt, the highlight was meeting our new friends, Miguel and Carmen.

After Madrid, we resumed our goal of starting a food blog, with sidebars on travel and art. We went through a variety of names like “Foodbaster, We Keep it Juicy,” and created a slew of original recipes featuring star anise.

The recipes sucked (Steel Cut Oats Chicken with Blackberries and Raspberries!), and the overall concept wasn’t working.

At the same time we started noticing “things” weren’t quite the same as when we were 40. It definitely took just a bit longer to recover from the overnight flight to Madrid (Lo didn’t sleep for four days), and a dull ache in my hip, diagnosed as bursitis, was not disappearing after a six-week course of physical therapy.  In other words, we were swimming through a new set of currents – familiar, recognizable, but with a definite change in direction. And with that realization, the light went on: we want to talk about where we are now, because we are not in Kansas anymore. Ergo, The Write Side of 50 was born, and we are now 11 days old.  So here’s to us!  Have a great weekend everybody!