Blogging

I've been a journal-er for as long as I can remember. My oldest attempts at journal-ing chronicle both my childish thoughts, which is okay because I WAS a child, as well as my horrible handwriting. Hopefully, my thoughts have matured and most of the time my students can read my scrawling on the board, so apparently I'm making progress. I don't journal as much as I would like and I actually blog more than I journal. This is strange to me. Blogging has not replaced the intimacy of a pen and paper journal, but it is a different sort of pleasure. It is more of a public attempt at organizing my thoughts.

What is especially funny about this is that in my head blogging is community minded. Not that I think these words have a huge audience, but I know that there are a few people who read my blog on a fairly consistent basis. This would be strange to me if it weren't for two things, one, I like that they are reading and hope they continue and two I also read their blogs. As I think I've mentioned before I am in a year long blogging contest with one of these readers and recently realized that one of my best-est friends is also blogging with some regularity.

Her blog is baby centered and filled with pictures of complete cuteness. Her writing is even more telling about what's going on. She and I have had conversations about the unexpected pleasure of this form of writing and a silly habit of composing blogs in our heads. Part of what I enjoy is the thought process involved with writing. Thinking about what to write, how to say it and whether it will get the point across. In college I was a communications and English double major (laugh all you want) and so essentially I spent 4 years writing papers, some of which I really enjoyed. As an adult there are very few opportunities to think about writing...

(well, that's not exactly true. I teach writing, so I think about it fairly consistently, but it is a formula driven coping skill that I try to teach my writing leery students. They are not, generally, the type to enjoy the process or even the outcome, an exception to that is poetry but that's the stuff of another blog)

These posts are self indulgent, intellectual fun and it still surprises me how much I like the process and the sharing out. Most importantly, it forces me to slow down and deliberately think about what I am thinking. Intentionality is important, another friend and I have had long conversations about meditation (something I do not do) but the effect (I would imagine) is similar. It is about mindfulness. In order to write I must slow down enough to examine a situation or my own thoughts about it. And though I do not get the opportunity near as often as I like, that is why I'm writing this blog.

post script: I had completed half of this post, saved it for later, then checked the post of my best-est. Her most recent post was about blogging. I didn't read it, wanting to complete my thoughts before I read hers. So I finished mine then read hers; she also referenced our conversation, which took place last weekend, about composing blog posts in her head. Reading her comments made me nod and not surprisingly, made me even more determined to keep up with this self indulgent game.