blogging – Jeanne Hewell-Chambers

Altar103b

I think of the letters shared by women who preceded me . . . “I put up 7 pints of bread-and-butter pickles today.” . . . “Jerry is down in his back again.” . . . “Katie sent me her upside-down pineapple cake recipe. It’s in the oven baking now, and it smells so good. I’ll let you know how it turns out.” . . . “My iris are blooming this year. I separated them last year, planted them not quite so deep.” Sometimes a copy of a new recipe was tucked inside the envelope along with the letter . . . sometimes an article snipped from the local paper . . . sometimes a picture of a grandchild.

I love these old letters. The handwriting is evocative and so is the dailiness of a (so-called) ordinary life. Women staying in touch. Sharing. Reporting in. Plucking jewels from their ordinary day.

Something Sarah said in her comment got me thinking about these letters . . . (she always opens a window for me, and i never know what the view will be but i always love it) . . . about how back in The Day we used blogs and the comments as exchanges of letters. We’d read a blog post and respond in the comment how it resonated with us, what it brought up in us, how it affected us. We’re share stories. Sometimes we’d take something from a comment and write a whole post around it, carrying on the conversation. We had the same 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week, and we used some of that time to read each other’s blogs.

I miss that.

So that’s what I’m gonna’ do here in this blog. That’s what feels right in my bones. It’s like it touches some deep longing and beckons it out to be tended to. Susan says in her comment: “Share when the urge hits and if you don’t feel like it, don’t bother.” Advice that feels real good to these bones. And that’s why I’m posting twice today. Maybe even another post before bedtime (cause I’m getting of an age when at bedtime I can’t remember what happened in the morning, so why not make it easier on myself).

(But hey, one thing you’ll never read here: “I put up 7 pints of pickles today.” You can take that one to the bank.)

p.s. The photo is altar #103. I’m revving that up again. It’s 365 or bust.

p.s. 2: The altar is treasures I picked up on Daytona Beach a couple of weeks ago when we went down for the opening of the museum exhibit my first hymn of cloth is in. Yes, really. Me. My cloth. In a museum exhibit. SQUEEEEE!!!!!

Utahfierceandbeautiful

how does this blog fit into my life? do i even dare ask: how does this blog fit neatly into my life? no, that seems a completely different question that speaks to writing in the midst of interruptions and such, so i’ll choose the question i led with: how does this blog fit into my life?

that’s a question i’ve been asking myself of late. i don’t want to give up the blog, you see, cause i look forward to being here and i miss being here when i’m not . . . and yet it’s like fiddling with a Rubik’s cube to figure this out. is this little acre in the ethers a journal, a therapist’s couch, a postcard, lunch with friends? it’s a question that pops up every year or so for me, and i think it’s a conversation worth having, though i’d almost rather get a root canal without anesthesia. i count myself lucky that it’s a conversation i can have with my friend angela, and following angela’s good lead, i’m analyzing the blogs i enjoy regularly in terms of what i like about them and why i keep reading (even if i don’t always leave a comment. which is another conversation i’m having with myself.). she has a really good system – you should ask her about it sometime.

on any given day, my life looks like a woman trying to sip water from a fully-loaded firehose. i hugely – enormously – admire women who can pluck jewel or three from their day and write about it clearly and succinctly and interestingly. me? i just see the steady stream of water, not the individual drops. i’ve tried pretending i’m writing letters to friends. i’ve tried pretending that my kids are interested enough to drop in and see what mom’s up to. i’ve tried pretending i’m throwing parties here. and still i question: how much to reveal? what to write about? how often to post?

and to further complicate things, the more i stay away, the deeper the hole gets, the harder it is for me to isolate a single thing to write about because as we’ve already established, i’m not good at plucking, and honestly, maybe i’m not smart enough or aware enough or whatever enough, but the thing is: i just don’t have an epiphany a day. it’s with a bit of a red face that i tell you i can go years before the lightbulb goes off.

it might be easier had i information to impart, but i don’t. i really don’t. and to tell you the truth, i’m kinda’ tired of hearing and seeing all these offers from folks who will tell me how to make every inch, every aspect of my life better ’cause i know it’s ultimately up to me. and right now, that’s precisely what i’m doing: seeking ways to live the life with my name on it, to live it with gusto, sass, abandon, and sparkle ratcheted up so much i need sunglasses to brush my hair.

so, sigh.