Friday, September 17, 2021

A Little Bit of September

However strong my convictions are about retiring, or if I think I am on the brink of breaking an old habit, something comes up that cannot be resisted, like the Moon rising with Venus, Mercury, or bringing home the first pumpkin of the season, the sight of storm clouds towering in the east, so what other choice do I have? I have to share. And the pumpkin was good motivation for clearing off the dining table, and preparing some special dinners. Then I even cleaned the window paint off of the entry sidelights... yes, the Christmas window paint, up since December 4th. In my defence, the paint held up very well, and it was cheery. So, here you have it... a little bit of September, from watching the sky to Windex and elbow grease. Actually, this feels nice... I do wish we could get together over tea, and Maria's cranberry orange scones, and enjoy a long, slow, thorough chat.

Monday, September 13, 2021

Dear Diary

It occurs to me that I could carry on blogging, but without the sense of failure and embarrassment about obscurity, if I imagined this, the Blog, is my diary, a personal journal. Still digital. Still chock full of photographs, and me over thinking and over sharing. And, this would be the difference... I "forget" to change the settings to "private." It's a deception, a bit of duping my own brain, which, sadly, is not hard to do. Actually, it is the belief that I am obscure, well below the radar, that emboldens me to share ideas like this, revealing my (slight) obsesssion with my blogging, anonymity, and insignificance in social media, not too mention my highly questionable use of commas, everywhere. Is it too much? I mean, with the commas? Objectively, I really, really, really appreciate the anonymity, versus how terrifying it would be to be noticed, then scrutinized, critiqued, possibly trolled. The dread fear of someone disrupting my life, to judge my grammar, or use my posts in an article about how not to blog... I feel ill. I have been fortunate, I see that. It occurs to me, in this digital age of high speed exposure, that it could be time to go back to letter writing, and printing, to sealed envelopes, photo albums on a bookshelf. I wish I was not so enarmoured of how pretty high definition photographs look, formatted and illuminated on a large monitor, and the way words and expression, long descriptions, and transcribed details, minutiae, chronology, feel like a well ordered home, a place to catch me if I am falling. And, here I really put my heart squarely on my sleeve... I had hoped to feel as though I was successful, so that the ones who did criticize me would say, "Ah, she did make something of her writing, afterall." Or the bloggers, the good ones, the shiny ones, that could have reciprocated, or nodded my direction, might have included me, shared some of what they extolled and saluted, like "community" and "inclusion." I am closer than ever to a place I think would be good, where I value my writing and photographs more than recognition, and inclusion. I had hoped to be a part of something bigger, after all of this time and effort, but now, after all this time and effort, I may be happier to retreat.