On Blogging

Grace Cathedral, New York City by Lori Wolfson

I used to look at writing a blog like being one of those people who get on the subway and tell their story to their briefly held captive audience. Like when you’re on the train in New York and it stops, and people get off and people get on, and the doors close. And then the train starts to move again.

And sometimes an unusual-looking person emerges from the dulled anonymity and proceeds to… try to convince you to give them money so they can escape from their miserable fate, which they parade flamboyantly and shamelessly before you. They mumble and moan. They orate very loudly and very fast, because they know they don’t have much time, and you probably aren’t listening, and they have to keep moving to stay ahead of the cops.

They tell you everything you didn’t want to know about their sordid secrets, imploring you to attend to the profound importance of the crisis of their life. They have a sense about them of desperate freedom. They know that out of a thousand people maybe one will hear.

Or sometimes it’s a couple of Latino gentlemen with oversize guitars and heroic faces who fill the car with resounding Mariachi tunes, belting out their passion as if they were under a far-away South American sky filled with infinite stars and melancholy.

These souls come in all shapes and sizes, but all with the same need to be seen. And then they get off at the next stop. And you’re left with a dollar less in your pocket and the surreal sense that an astonishing glimpse into the pure heart of life has been opened to you for an instant, unexpected and unbeckoned.

Well, that’s how I saw writing a blog. You get on the Internet Express with all these strangers who have everything on their minds but you, and you give it your all to make an impression and get whatever you can from them, and then get off at the next stop.

But now I see it differently. It’s not so much about garnering attention or making you like me. I would rather think of a blog as conversation with like-minded people, a give and take, an exchange, a sharing of a little piece of my world with yours. And there’s something to be said for showing up regularly, writing about what matters to me at the moment, with the goal of saying it in a clear and harmonious way.

It is creatively invigorating to put my thoughts into words. There is benefit in the practice of setting down sentences to build meaning. It uses a different part of my brain when my medium is words and not paint, but there is cross-pollination occurring. I can feel it. A new kind of creative entity is growing in this marrying of the airy flight of light, color, and visual imagery to the earthy network of ideas upon which I build my storied world of thought. Birthing what? We shall see.

Meanwhile this train just keeps rolling on. And maybe it’s enough just to be one of those brave troubadors singing my heart out for all to hear. (Brother, can you spare a dime?)