Who is Kate Eardley, anyway?

I've thought a lot today about the name for this blog, and who Kate Eardley is in relation to Cath Constable. So who is Kate Eardley? She's part of me; an alter ego perhaps, except that the dictionary defines an alter ego as a second self, as though separate, while Kate Eardley is in me and of me. Kate Eardley is slightly Victorian but thoroughly modern. She is named for my paternal grandmother, Kate, who was feisty and strong and ahead of her time... and for my maternal grandmother Rose, who was a Bowen originally, but whose married name was Eardley-Wilmot and who was resourceful and entreprenurial out of necessity.

Kate Eardley is a part of me that embraces those qualities. She is modest, perhaps even demure, but thoroughly modern, resourceful, practical, inventive, eclectic, strong in a gentle kind of way that makes her appealing to others, and unafraid. Cath is the part of me that is a poet, hears notes the piano cannot play, whose dreams exceed her grasp, who wears her heart on her sleeve and who has been bruised by life. It's not that Kate is unfeeling, but life doesn't fluster her. She not only turns lemons in to lemonade, she opens a bustling lemonade stand, branches out into cakes and tea and next thing you know has written a cookbook and is importing her own lemons.

So why name this blog for Kate Eardley? Because I'm at a turning point in my life and would like to make space for the Kate in me. Because Cath, who has lived an unconventional life, has had her heart broken enough times that she needs and deserves a rest from being "out there" all the time, to have a chance to spend more time figuring out how to express the music she hears but so far has been unable to play.

And why "wonderment"? Because overall, at this point in my life, I'm filled with awe and gratitude much of the time... that is, when I'm not puzzling over things that are new, bewildering or otherwise perplexing. I foresee two primary thrusts for this blog: one wherein I share things that are wonder-full, the other in which I wonder aloud about things I don't fully understand. I've always liked double entendres and this one seems to fit.

I have a lot to learn about publishing a blog. Bear with me; this is a good start.