(Several pieces lately have alluded to blogiversaries on OS, including ones most recently by Chuck Stetson and Padriag Colman. Each reflection adds its own take on what OS means to us and how it's evolved during our time here.

 I wrote this last week, but on that day Senator Kennedy died and  so I instead posted a piece relating to my husband's similar situation. So here's my belated post.)

The summer before my senior year I attended The Northwestern University Writers Institute with a  group of about 50 teen high school newspaper editors from all over the country. The regular students called us "cherubs" and I was so naive I couldn't even understand why.

We were a cohesive group, like bright, budding OSers, and we lived together in a dorm on Lake Michigan that July and August, pounding out writing exercises on our manual typewriters. We hardly had a chance to rewrite. We competed, interacted and commented on each others' work, and were stimulated every day to write several articles. We bonded quickly, and took weekly outings by bus into Chicago, including visits to the Art Institute and picnics on the lake -- where I saw my first naked man sunning by the shore. (I was aghast. He did not look like the statues at the Art Institute.)

We played and wrote and dreamed about becoming famous and successful writers, and some of us did, becoming heads of advertising firms and columnists and such. And some took different paths: One guy I dated  wanted to be a poet and became a rabbi --not the one I married-- and another became a priest. (I'm ecumenical and seem to drive men to religion, if nothing else.)

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For most of my life, like so many of us,  I didn't write much besides  paid assignments.  I tried journaling but wasn't motivated enough without mentoring. And when I did write an article or even a book, I might be asked to write another, but I'd rarely get a compliment  -- editors don't bother much, and they expect good work, so why should they comment? Writing into a vacuum is lonely, and so over the years I felt less and less urge to write, except when I needed to.

Enter the Internet. I started blogging on my own site four years ago, and had been a featured blogger on Huffpost for a couple of years, but last August just around my birthday, when the political campaign was heating up, I was reading Glenn and Joan on Salon and discovered the portal into Open Salon. I read and I wondered. It seemed so different from other sites.

So I wrote my first OS post, and got three comments and five thumbs and I was overjoyed. And my second post got an EP and a cover and --omigod -- a comment from Joan. I felt as if I had just landed a book deal. This place WAS different.

Okay, it wasn't perfect then, and it isn't perfect now and it never will be. Too much navel gazing, and lots of tetchiness and silliness and jealousing and flame wars. And the tone around here changes from week to week and yes, we've lost some of our best minds.

But, it's the best place around the Net for a writer, as far as I can tell.

I know, I know, we're not getting paid to blog here. But those of us who've been  writing into the void for so long realize how special it is to have a place to go where you're able to write whatever you want and where you get feedback and response in a supportive environment, and can give it back after reading a wide variety of fine writing. And even beyond that, where you can make friends who share your viewpoints and interests and talents. And sometime, as in the case of Gwen Cooper who just posted about  her new book that started with an OS blog, it can be a magic portal.

I'm certainly not a cherub in any way, anymore (more like a devil-in-disguise), but when I open OS each morning I feel the same bond and the same excitement that I did back at beautiful Northwestern all those years ago. The numbers on my age are turned around, but the feelings inside me and the urge to write are just as fresh as they were then.

So on my coincidental birthday/blogiversary (Rob St. Amant coined blogiversary; I just added the first part), I'm delighted for the precious marking of another year. And I'm especially delighted for the chance to thank those who read me during the past year and especially those who have commented and rated and made me a favorite.  And I thank the rest of you for creating material that has informed, challenged and entertained me since last August.

Open Salon has been a special gift I could never  have imagined back when I was a cherub at that summer writing institute. So many years later, but still filled with wonderment, challenged by excellence and encouraged to write.