The Beauty of the Blog

The world is shrinking. A writer far more clever than me says it’s flat. Thanks primarily to the World Wide Web, it’s easier than ever to communicate, do business, even have a relationship with someone on the opposite side of the globe.

When I think about my mom living in South Africa thirty years ago, I can’t imagine how disconnected she must have felt. She and my father lived here in Johannesburg for two years, and not once did they fly home for a visit. And worst of all, they had to rely on air mail to communicate with loved ones back home.

Can you imagine?

I certainly can’t. Not only do I have email and skype to keep me connected, I also have this little blog. Through the wonder of blogspot.com, I attempt to ensure that I am gone but not forgotten. True, it requires me to bare my soul in a public forum on a weekly basis, but that just proves the lengths to which I will go to stay in the forefront of your minds! Is it working? Okay, maybe not the forefront of your mind, but if you are reading these words at this moment, then you must think of me every once in a while, right? Hell, some of you probably know more about me now than you did when you saw me every day. Funny that, huh?

When you think about it, though, a blog is really just an email to pretty much everyone I know. But if I were to write an email about my latest drama and then copy and paste it to my entire address book (possibly changing a line or two to make it seem more personal), well that just seems a little sleazy. However, I can post my thoughts on a web page and invite you to check it out and that seems more socially acceptable – a bit narcissistic – but much better than what is essentially a mass email.

When I was in college, one of my roommates started dating a boy right before he left for a semester in Spain. Theirs was a relationship based on emails, and she awaited any and all communication with great anticipation. When his name popped up in her inbox we gathered around the screen, eager to analyze his words and decipher their meaning. It wasn’t until the third or fourth email that we began to suspect the emails weren’t quite as personal as he would have her believe. I can’t remember exactly what gave it away, but at some point we were faced with indisputable proof that lover boy was patching the emails together via cut and paste. She had been hanging on the words of what was essentially a mass email. Oh the horror! The humiliation!

Traumatic as it was for my friend at the time, the boy was probably just trying to be efficient with his time. Instead of typing out the same story nineteen different ways, he simply hit CTRL-C and pasted the story into a new email. Logical enough, but somehow a bit, well…sleazy. I won’t lie though; I’ve done it before. Not on a regular basis, but if I think I’ve described something in a particularly witty or clever fashion I might copy and paste a paragraph or two. But I think the blog is much better – it’s more polite. It says “here’s-what-I’m-up-to-if-you-feel-like-knowing-but-I-won’t-bombard-your-inbox-with-a-rambling-email-based-on-the-narcississtic-notion-that-you-do” (feel like knowing, that is).

Now that being said, sometimes I wrongfully assume that you know what I’m up to because you have read my blog when clearly – you haven’t. It’s fine, really. (It’s especially fine for you. Seeing as you’re reading at this very moment, it’s probably not you I’m talking about!) But not long ago a friend of mine – who claims to “love” my blog – asked if Roger and I had moved into the cottage yet. Ouch. If she’d read almost any one of my posts over the past six months, she would know that I have only regained my sanity because of said cottage! So, yes, maybe it bruised my ego a bit, but just as I was hurt to learn she’s not a regular reader, I have been delighted to find readers in unexpected places. I’m thrilled when someone emails me a follow up question about something I’ve written in my blog. I eagerly await any and all comments (it's borderline pathetic, actually). And then there was the revealation that someone I’d never even met was reading my blog. How cool is that? And now this former stranger has become a new friend – an ‘e-friend,’ if you will! Ah, the wonder of the blog.

It’s funny now, that I was almost too chicken to start a blog. The prospect was terrifying. I knew that I wanted to commit to a weekly ‘column’ of sorts, but what if I discovered I didn’t actually have much to say? And what if a week wasn’t enough time to compose and refine my 1,000 words? Or worse – what if I finally put my writing out there, only to reveal that it isn’t actually all that great? I mean it’s one thing to call myself a writer, but until you’ve read something I’ve written how can you honestly encourage or advise? You can’t. Hence my hesitation…

I’m glad that I didn’t let those fears stop me, and a year and 55 posts later I’m still here (and surprisingly, so are you!). However, I still seem to have plenty more to say – at times it will be more eloquent than others, but that’s the great thing about a weekly blog – you can’t expect genius every time. And if you do, then allow me to apologize now...

But I guess this is just to say thanks for reading. Thanks for indulging my Carrie Bradshaw fantasies and allowing me to spill my secrets every week.
It may not be Shakespeare, but it’s cheaper than therapy!
So, thanks…