Sweeping Irreverence

I’m new to the world of blogging,  and for a time I didn’t even like the word, “blogging.”  To me it sounded disrespectful to writing.  Like a smart young whipper snapper here to reinvent the world of  writing, and to save us from all of those pesky intimate one on one conversations. ” Just read my blog.”  Efficient. It still sounds like a mouthful of something you need to get out, which I suppose it is. Blogging. It’s not the amount of letters, it’s their combined shape and texture, the way it sounds like you have too much of something in your mouth to enunciate. Maybe it’s just me, or perhaps it was on purpose.

 I’m a late bloomer when it comes to technology. I have been called a luddite, and one friend was audacious enough to call me “computer illiterate.”  I didn’t like that, I prefer luddite.  I simply have no faith in your fancy futuristic devices, now would you please go saddle up the horse, I’m late for yoga.  I was angry in nursing school, because I felt “forced” into needing a computer. I hated having to wrestle my way through screens and needing help at every turn, to find shit, to print the shit out. It was, and still is frusterating and humbling.  The following is true:  I just recently mastered the cut and paste technique.  Brilliant.

I was doing just fine, checking my email once a week, and not getting involved with silliness like MySpace and Facebook. It was a simple life.  I actually felt superior for not needing such distractions, content to write in my notebook and talk on the phone. I suspect I will remain like an old woman with tight fists when it comes to these new fangled devices like Kindle. Please do not tell me that the printed word will soon be obsolete. This thought grips my heart with fear, because nothing comforts me like a bookstore, I feel safe in a well stocked library,  and at home with my collection of hard and soft bound delights that I can see, touch and smell.  What happens if the grid goes down, huh?  What then???? 

So to find myself “managing” a blog, no, managing two blogs is surprising to me.  What is also surprising is what happens when you begin to post your writing.  It’s never just about you, I find myself full of ambivalence when it comes to telling certain people about my online writing fun. I worry that some of the things I will say, have said, am saying will offend them.  What is for me a simple practice in writing in straight lines and sharing my truth, may make some one else feel bad.  There is a memoir in my future, which is  the motivation for all of this mumbo jumbo.  There seems to be no going back, writing it all down in notebooks. I have ten years worth of them shouting at me from my walk in closet. 

I have faith that I will learn how to be honest and clear without hurting someone else. I am thinking mostly of my memoir.  There is so much to say, and certainly it is intensely personal.  While I am an open book, I recognize that  those who have played major roles in my life may not be. The very last thing I want to do is to hurt some one I love, or anyone for that matter.  So I am still learning, a student of everything forever.

Perhaps I should consider telling my story in fiction?