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My Blog is an Audition for My Words and Ideas

One of my favourite bloggers had to close her blog.  She admitted, as many do, that she wasn’t even sure what her blog should be or where it even was, calling her exploration of social media and the way it changes constantly as feeling like “an old dog wrestling with a new trick.”

Blogging both feels as if it plods along, always the same if you’re eyeore-ish about it, as I seem to be.  You will still find me here, years from now, with (most likely) the same layout and the same type of content.  I have not Pinterestized my blog and I don’t vlog and I don’t have a lot of fancy schmancy plugins like a good blogger should.

This space is just an audition room for my words and ideas.

I don’t think any of us truly know the dimensions of our blog.  We don’t know where our blog ends and the audience begins.  We don’t know where we end and our blog begins.  We have no sense of the depth of our ideas or the reach of our words.  If you think about it too much, it’s like jumping into a sink hole without any knowledge of when your foot will touch bottom; a scary concept.  But just because we can’t touch all the walls to be sure of its form doesn’t mean that we can’t understand aspects about the shape of the space.  My blog is a harbour, it’s a refuge, it’s a dumping ground, it’s an information gatherer.

And mostly, it is, as I’ve already said, an audition space for my words and ideas, a place to try them out before I state them elsewhere, if at all.  Things you read here end up later in books, usually in an altered yet similar form.  If you squint at paragraphs, you can see places where Rachel Goldman is taking thoughts from my blog.  I try them out here with you so I can understand them better myself.  I take these ideas out of my head, place them on the screen, and after we speak about them, I place them back into my head, slightly changed.

I don’t usually convey ideas well when I’m speaking aloud.  This is the place where I can explain myself, where I can build myself out of words.  I feel confident here, and we all need a place where we feel confident because everyone struggles with some aspect of their world whether it’s their workplace relationships or their marriage or their friendships.  Everyone needs a place that they can come to and feel understood.  For others, that place is the yoga studio or a conference room or a local store.  For me, it’s this blog.

I’m sad this writer is losing her space, even if she didn’t fully know her space, because I get a sense that she loved it even if she didn’t understand her blog at times.  And because, selfishly, I loved getting a chance to see her words.  I hope I get a chance one day to read them again.

9 comments

1 Lori Lavender Luz { 11.18.12 at 2:22 pm }

Blogs are living, breathing things, like you say, an extension of the person behind them. Like you, I go into mourning when one I’ve come to know goes away.

I’m glad you’ll be here for a loooooong time 🙂

2 Kimberly { 11.18.12 at 6:17 pm }

My thoughts mirror Lori’s. I consider a blog a living, breathing extension of the people I’ve come to know. My blogging friends are as dear and close to me as the friends I grew up with. So much so that my routine of grabbing a cup of tea and sitting down to “catch up” on the lives of blogging friends brings me as much comfort as if they were sitting across from me, enjoying said cup of tea and catching up.

3 a { 11.18.12 at 9:06 pm }

I’m glad to hear you’ll be sticking around…

4 Casey { 11.18.12 at 9:07 pm }

Years from now, I will still be here too. Or, er, there, I suppose. I too use my blog as a place for my ideas. I work through them by writing them out, trying them out, having an audience. I use my blog for accountability for myself. To get myself to be better. It works. It’s true for me that I am a better person when others are watching and by blogging, someone’s always watching. And that’s a good thing. But yes, you are very right that we really don’t know who is watching or where that starts. I don’t think of it much. Just try to get the best out of it because it has been so good to me.

5 Mali { 11.18.12 at 10:07 pm }

Several years ago I was blogging with a small group of people who had become friends. Suddenly, one of our number vanished from the internet. His blog went, his FB account went, everything disappeared. All we knew was that he was deleting all his accounts, and he asked for no contact. It was shocking – one of his friends was extremeley hurt. These friendships we develop through our blogs are real. And we communicate through our blogs, so it is a loss.

I love the idea though that your blog is an audition for ideas and for words. Mine is too, to an extent. It is the way I sort out my thoughts and feelings, the way I manage to put things in perspective.

Oh, and I’m glad you’re not going anywhere.

6 Pam/wordgirl { 11.19.12 at 8:45 am }

Dear sweet Mel,
I have a new space and even the same name : http://www.bloodsignsblog.com. I have, using your example in ways, stood in the light– my name is associated with it– I even told my family because I thought long and heard about how I could simultaneously stand by each word in my blog and yet acquiesce to the desire that it be shuttered– not for any other reason than for the true struggle in revealed in step parenting. “I don’t want him to know how much we are all paddling water to make this happen”. And so out of deference to that relationship I opened anew– because even though step parenting was one small thread of my narrative — to try to pull it out was to make the entire thing unravel. Since that moment I have realized how much I needed a space to speak my truth without being silenced– not just about step parenting but about my fathers alcoholism and murder, my mothers lifelong depression, the ever present grieving for a fuller, more whole family life– the search for connectedness. What I’m struggling with now as I am out in the open is how to continue to tell my truth when others have a different version. How to truly speak my truth when those I love can see it in my eyes.

I am here. I hope you’ll visit.

Love

Pam

7 Pam/wordgirl { 11.19.12 at 10:38 am }

Sorry for the typos! I am never very good at commenting in my phone. I just wanted to clarify. I agreed when I thought more about it that there are different privacy issues as a child gets older, and as they enter the digital world… More able and apt to discover things there. I did agree that there was a need to protect W – I, of all people, should know the disconcerting place of a child who sees the inner workings of their parents mind– I have to think hard about what that means in terms of how I write about parenting. Love to you Mel!

8 Marisa { 11.19.12 at 1:04 pm }

What a great post Mel. I feel like I’m torn about this topic all the time and often find myself derailed because of the overwhelming need to have direction when, in fact, I don’t. Writing is a release for me but when I over think it it becomes too stressful.

It has only been a year since I started http://www.twointhemud.wordpress.com and I’m feeling a bit more comfortable putting personal information on the web but I’m in the process of finding the courage to join my personal blogging with my professional blogging but am not quite there. Part of it is that I just can’t find the commonality between the two…and I’m afraid to put my life out there for the professional world to see. I might need to take the leap and see what happens. Worst case I lose all professional credibility and end up homeless on the street, right? =)

Thanks again for your inspiration.

Marisa

9 Jen { 11.24.12 at 12:41 am }

You are so right – the dimensions of a blog is a truly curious thing. Sitting here, tapping away at the keyboard, forming words out of our own stories and having them digitally recorded forever whether ten people or a thousand people will ever see it… it is so unique… which I think is part of the appeal for me.

It’s a mish-mash of our voices and our perspectives, our internal dreams and our external image. And definitely a space to explore. I’ll never really get a good grasp on why I blog or what my blog space is all about, but I love exploring that space.

It is a little sad when the spaces that others have created just disappear. I think there’s a certain attachment to the blog world that keeps us coming back each day or each week. Recently a favourite blogger of mine returned after months away – I thought she would never come back; that the blog had ended. I was so relieved! I missed that beautiful creative space that someone else had made. I guess sharing my own space for others to have that experience, and make someone’s day, is another (perhaps selfish) reason I’m enjoying my own little blog again.

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