I got an email this morning from a blogger whom I admire tremendously and whose blog I lurk at regularly but can't comment on due to the fact that at one point a few years ago I started an anonymous blog at another blogging platform (okay, maybe it was more than one- both blogs and platforms) and now I can't comment on blogs written on those platforms because they INSIST that I be identified as the person who wrote those anonymous blogs even though I have done everything within my personal power to eliminate, decimate those blogs and even written to their help section to ask them to DO SOMETHING ABOUT REMOVING ME but no, they can't, they won't, they don't.
As long as I am using my email address, they won't let me post with my real true self and dammit, I refuse to open up another damn email address and can you tell I just woke up?
Anyway, this blogger, who is Andrea Carlisle who blogs at Go Ask Alice...When She's 94 was passing along an award, one of those things that used to happen all the time in blogging but don't so much anymore, a Very Inspiring Blogger Award, and I wrote her back and told her that no, these things sort of make me feel weird and also, part of the deal is that you're supposed to write seven things that people may not know about you and I told her that after all this time that if there are things people don't know about me that's because I really don't want them to and so there you go.
BUT, golly, I am honored, and especially since her other choice of a blog to nominate was Elizabeth, our dear, dear Elizabeth at A Moon, Worn As If It Had Been A Shell, so you know I'm doubly honored.
Anyway, if you have never read Andrea, please go there and do. She writes about her mother, Alice, and as I told Andrea in my return email, her story gives me a space and a place to fantasize about what it would have been like to have had a relationship with my mother which had been more loving and openhearted. She even managed to get k.d. Lang (Alice's favorite singer) to come and visit her mama at the assisted living where she lives and I fell in love with Andrea and Alice even more because k.d. has been a hero and personal favorite of mine for about forever.
Okay, yes, I am rambling like a drunk on Friday night.
The point is, well, what IS my point?
I am honored.
I saw an article yesterday about how maybe blogging is dying and I thought to myself, "Not for me." I didn't even read the article, truthfully. I think maybe the fresh new bloom is off the rose for all of the people who thought they were going to get in there and make a ton of money, or even any money from their blogs, inspired by Dooce and Pioneer Woman, but for those of us who come to this place to write because we HAVE to write and because we have found within it a community that lights our souls and which makes us feel as if our hands are being held in the darkness and with which we have become so entangled and connected that we feel pride when someone's child does something amazing and we hurt when another of us hurts and we feel as comfortable in each other's living rooms and kitchens and on porches as we do in our own, well...for us, blogging is not dead at all but a living, breathing, very real thing.
Hey! It's saved my life and often times my sanity and that's all there is to it.
So, good morning and thank you, Andrea, and thank you to all of you- my friends here and I am not just saying that. I mean it with every red blood cell in my body. Probably more than you can ever know. Or maybe you do because blogging means that much to you too. Thank you all for all the windows and doors you fling open and allow me into and welcome me with words and pictures from your worlds, your families, your hearts, your souls, your places here on this planet. How could THAT die?
Good morning, happy Friday. The boys are coming and I need to get ready. The sky is gray and the wisteria is blooming. The chickens are asking to be let out and I am so glad to be here. In Lloyd and in cyberspace and in your lives.
Love...Ms. Moon
Oh the sound of the warmth of your life makes me envious. it does. and makes me feel lucky to be able to come here and bask in it.
ReplyDeletexoxo dd
I've had a love/hate relationship with my blog for years. I move it, change it, mark it private, quit, start again...it's mildly embarrassing. I always come back though because I'm compelled to spill my guts, even though it cost me my family. (It's all good, they weren't worth much anyway.)
ReplyDeleteMy favorite thing to do is read through my very own archives and see where I was at different times. Check on my personal growth (if any) and laugh at crazy things I've written.
Blogging may be dying but true bloggers blog in spite of trends.
Congrats. I love Andrea's and Elizabeth's blogs and your blog. I rarely miss a post from any of you. You all deserve an award, big bucks, fame, and true good fortune.
ReplyDeleteI would literally feel a hole in my day if I didn't have your blog. I'd be left to wonder what everyone is up to. I plan to read about Owen getting his driver's license and more. I'm glad you have no plans to buy into the blogging is dying propoganda.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if blogging is over. perhaps it's not attracting as many new bloggers and I know some people quit after a couple of years. But I started this for me essentially and readers are the icing on the cake. And I refuse to monetize my blog. I hate all those ads everywhere.
ReplyDeleteheartinhand - yah, that tends to happen when you tell the truth. I recently pissed off many of my in-laws over the two posts I wrote on the death of my FIL who was great to them but turned his back on us.
Love you. Keep that feeling of being honored. You so are.
ReplyDeletexo
I do feel like the community of blogging has dwindled enormously. A lot of bloggers I really liked to read and who came to my blog closed up their blogs, and many people just stopped commenting or responding to comments, which is the community part of blogging. It still happens, but it's just a lot less than it used to be, and it makes me sad. I miss that sense of a huge cyber family of people. I think for me it's partly because of the closed up blogs and a lot of the women I was socializing with went on to become business women with blogging, and they don't read blogs anymore. They just write their own, and do their writing assignments for other places.
ReplyDeleteWith every cell in my blood, thank you for being a part of my blogging world and thank you for these words, which remind me why I do it.
ReplyDeleteYou and E certainly deserve the honors.
I don't post every day as I once did. I post when I have something to write about. And there are days that I don't really think that I have much then to write about. But I continue on for now. And the community is smaller but still there with new people who do read and comment. I like that.
ReplyDeleteThis. This is it exactly. Thank you for being in my living room, in my heart.
ReplyDelete"... a community that lights our souls and which makes us feel as if our hands are being held in the darkness and with which we have become so entangled and connected that we feel pride when someone's child does something amazing and we hurt when another of us hurts and we feel as comfortable in each other's living rooms and kitchens and on porches as we do in our own, well...for us, blogging is not dead at all but a living, breathing, very real thing."
There are a lot of times I want to stop blogging - energy, readership, privacy, dwindling community - but I never really do stop. I come back eventually. Some things we all just want to share. And I'm glad you are here sharing and to share with.
ReplyDeletehappy Friday, indeed
xoxo
I really have nothing to add. It was certainly an honor for me to be linked with you -- especially by Andrea who is not only one of my favorite bloggers but is also a brilliant writer!
ReplyDeleteI love this world and am grateful every day for my community here.
What article were you reading? I'd like to check it out. Are people allegedly leaving blogging in favor of Tweeting or Facebooking? Because to me, that is just not the same. Blogging is really writing, whereas tweeting, well, that's just hacking something up. (To put it poetically.)
ReplyDeleteI value my blog community a lot, and I miss people who leave blogging.
I don't think I ever had any illusions about making money off this. I used to keep boxes and boxes of journals just for myself, and no one ever read those. And like Ellen, you'll never see me "monetize" my blog, no matter how much Blogger urges me to.
Yes, yes, yes! Everything you say is true. Congratulations, you and Elizabeth are among the very best writers out here. The biggest surprise to me has been the reciprocity and the enduring relationships I've made here. We're all saving each other's sanity. Thanks so much.
ReplyDeletexo
Deirdre- I am so glad you come here too. So glad.
ReplyDeleteheartinhand- I almost NEVER go back through my blog. Isn't that strange? Keep writing. Don't go.
Denise- And don't we all?
Jill- Owen already has a truck. It's in the garage. I think that really his grandfather just doesn't want to get rid of it so he's "keeping" it for Owen. I, too, hope to be here to write all about the day Owen takes possession of it.
Ellen Abbott- My blog used to piss off one of my brothers horribly. And then one day I realized he had become one of the followers. I feel so blessed by that. By him.
Ms. Fleur- I am a lucky woman and I know it.
Maggie May- Well, let's face it. A lot of the community here are women over a certain age who are simply thrilled at the ability to write and be read and to be part of something. I am constantly amazed at how we have found each other. I am constantly amazed too at the level of good writing I find in the blog world in the most humble of places. I mean, ASTOUNDED.
Ms. Vesuvius- Here we are. And aren't we blessed to be?
Syd- Yes. New people find us and we find them and I think there is purpose in that. I hope you don't ever truly stop writing your blog. It is a part of my life now.
Angella- You know how much I was thinking of you when I wrote this post.
Rachel- Yes. Yes. Yes.
Elizabeth- It is such a place of comfort, isn't it? We have become part of each other's lives. I can't imagine not being able to do this. And honey, the honor is all mine.
Steve Reed- It's not that I don't think that a lot of the writing I read on blogs is worth paying for. Hell, I think a lot of what I read on blogs is far superior to what I read in newspapers and magazines which I DO pay for. This is part of the miracle of it to me. Let's face it- there are those of us who, if we weren't writing here, would yes, just be filling up journals. We can't help it. We must do it. And I'm sorry. I can't find the link to that article right now. It was posted on FB. Of course.
Mel- I truly feel that way- as if this place is better for me than a prescription for antidepressants. Honestly. There may be a time when I need both but for now, this is what I need most.