Public Privacy
I've been thinking about blogging a lot lately. Mostly about "the why" of blogging. Why I blog, why others blog. I've been so deeply affected by other people's blogs. I spend so much time thinking about things they write, the power of this way of meeting another person, and specifically the power of the interaction... I think part of it is the fulfillment of a long-time fantasy of mine: being able to interact with my favorite writers, and/or the characters they present. I am at odds with the impulse in myself, alternately indulgent and critical, because it's a way of exercising the impulse to write, because it is so anonymous, because I am so unwilling to reveal my blog to my closest friends, because its very public privateness is a remarkably powerful forum for self-discovery and identification with others. I am uneasy with it and yet released by it.
I want to thank you, Queenie and Inanna, for writing your blogs. Even when I do not feel I have the time to write for myself, I stop by to visit you. Should I always leave a comment when I do? Sometimes I notice the intimacy with which your other readers address you and I know I am just a stranger, passing through. Though I am always an appreciative reader and often, moved deeply by your words, I still am careful of being an interloper. I don't
want to crash the party. Though, occasionally, I can't resist. I've been learning from you -- about the power of blogging, and even more about the power of expression, and honesty, and plowing fallow fields to reclaim them for use. Again, thank you -- or that is to say, "thanks" (with a wink to Queenie's #68).
I also want to say thanks for reading my blog. As far as I know you're the only ones who have or do, and I feel honored, and not just that, but indebted. Although I do not understand this alchemy, the power of having you as readers is that my words land deeper within ME. Somehow, especially writing about my weekend to Indiana, became not just a writing exercise, or catharsis, but transformative in some way. And I am so conscious of that effect having been aided by the evidence of your witness. Thank you. Those words seem strange for the feeling I mean to convey to two cherished familiar strangers, but for now, they'll do, and I think I need both.
I want to thank you, Queenie and Inanna, for writing your blogs. Even when I do not feel I have the time to write for myself, I stop by to visit you. Should I always leave a comment when I do? Sometimes I notice the intimacy with which your other readers address you and I know I am just a stranger, passing through. Though I am always an appreciative reader and often, moved deeply by your words, I still am careful of being an interloper. I don't
want to crash the party. Though, occasionally, I can't resist. I've been learning from you -- about the power of blogging, and even more about the power of expression, and honesty, and plowing fallow fields to reclaim them for use. Again, thank you -- or that is to say, "thanks" (with a wink to Queenie's #68).
I also want to say thanks for reading my blog. As far as I know you're the only ones who have or do, and I feel honored, and not just that, but indebted. Although I do not understand this alchemy, the power of having you as readers is that my words land deeper within ME. Somehow, especially writing about my weekend to Indiana, became not just a writing exercise, or catharsis, but transformative in some way. And I am so conscious of that effect having been aided by the evidence of your witness. Thank you. Those words seem strange for the feeling I mean to convey to two cherished familiar strangers, but for now, they'll do, and I think I need both.
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