Why I Blog

It was about a decade maybe fifteen years ago that I decided I had to do something to capture what was within me.  I was feeling shackled by a variety of roles that seemed to be stealing away pieces of my soul. Watching little and big pieces of my life disappear scared me.

Ultimately I had to create a space where I could think out loud (but not where others could hear me) and where I could capture the memories of whom I was.  When I was still with working at a private practice law firm 16 years ago I wrote a couple of long pieces dealing with frustration and personal disquiet. Somewhere I still have them saved on floppy discs.  When I left private practice law was a period of grace when I felt okay and the turmoil seemed to abate. Nothing went down on paper during that time.

Eventually the questions started to crop up again.  Me I have always struggled with questions of meaning and ethics.  Nagging questions sent me down what a great number of people would think was an endless rabbit hole of reading philosophy.  Immersing my mind in Spinoza and others I mulled the meaning of life, love, marriage, trust and honor.  Little kernels that I would glean from their works would sit in the back of my mind. When I was struggling with things like my son’s diagnosis with Aspergers, my cancer and some other primal issues my feelings flowed out onto electronic paper.

One day as I was telling probably my rudest but humorous true sexual story to a couple of my barista friends at the coffee shop I used to call my second home a third party suggested I write a blog.  In March 2008 I started writing.  I have slowed my production at times but I have never stopped.  I also started using little notebooks to record some ideas to work into posts.  In doing this I was able to open up things I kept bottled up inside for a long, long time. Joni Mitchell kind of captured what was the disquiet that motivated me.

Joni Mitchell - Hejira Lyrics

 

I'm traveling in some vehicle

I'm sitting in some cafe

A defector from these petty wars

That shell shock love away

 

There's comfort in melancholy

When there's no need to explain

It's just as natural as the weather

In this moody sky today

 

In our possessive coupling

So much cannot be expressed

So now I'm returning to myself

These things that you and I suppressed

 

I see something of myself in everyone

Right at this moment of the world

As snow gathers like bolts of lace

Waltzing on a bridal girl

 

You know it never has been easy

Whether you do or you do not resign

Whether you travel the breadth of extremities

Or you stick to some straighter line

 

I would suggest to you (that is anyone who might be reading this) that you create some time to use your words to suss out different challenges and feelings that you are working through.  Me I have a Gmail account where I send only fragments of what is crossing my mind.  Maybe a sentence seems to work and I think I could use it later. Maybe I have a little thought that becomes a paragraph but there is not enough to create a piece of 250, 500 or 750 words.  So I capture it and fire it off and come back to it later.

Here is a plan of action for you dear reader. Create an electronic space for nothing other than collecting drafts or for writing out you gut’s most innermost feelings.  Then start using it.  Open it and write.

In the darkness and pain of solitude we have to work out our own salvation my friend.