I love Christmas. I always have. I think I've mentioned that before (and since a quick check reveals that I've written 18 posts to date with the label Christmas, I expect I have mentioned it more than once). And one of the best things about Christmas is the music. I love Christmas music. I love it all.
I love the familiar favourites about Santa and snowmen and reindeer and children, rehashed in scores of ways, played over wobbly sound systems in shops, abused as the background music to adverts on tv, warbled by children in school concerts.
I love the jolly ancient songs about wassailing. They make me think of our medieval forbears cheering themselves in the dark, dank, muddy, winter days, with a wassail bowl and a hog roast and a roaring fire. (Oh, thank heavens for central heating, fast food and shopping malls.)
I love carols, careful carriers of theological truths down the ages before most people could read and write. I used to love my 12" black vinyl record of carols, with a picture of snow-laden Christmas trees on the front. (I wonder if I still have it somewhere?) I love all those David Willcocks arrangements from Carols for Choirs. What a genius that man was. My favourite Christmas hymn is Of the Father's Love Begotten, which we had at our wedding (in January, not quite Christmas, but still Epiphany and therefore seasonal). It's based on a hymn written in the 4th century. It's old.
I love the Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge on Christmas Eve. I sat and listened to it with my grandmother in the last month of her life in 1983. I had just got a fancy radio/cassette player which I was rather pleased with - it had two built-in speakers, taking me to the lofty heights of stereo sophistication. She needed an oxygen mask on during parts of the service. It's one of my loveliest memories.
I love modern classics, All I want for Christmas is You, Santa Baby, Let it Snow, War is Over, Slade's So Here It Is - all of them. My favourite in this category is Paul McCartney's Wonderful Christmastime. There's something about that song that just gets me between the ribs.
I love mystic-sounding madrigals on CDs which have the word Celtic in the title, with pictures on the front of people in hooded garb, gazing mysteriously across misty landscapes. (Incidentally, don't you think the current iPod generation misses out, with downloadable music which has no need of album covers?)
I even love the offensively vacuous Kidz Compilationz CDs we have. I'm going to have to use the word 'festive' at this point. You know the kind. Lots of jingles and jangles and a good strong beat, where Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer morphs into Ding Dong Merrily on High which segues into We Wish You a Merry Christmas which blends into Away in a Manger which transmutes into Deck the Halls. We have one version in which they sing 'bows' of holly instead of 'boughs'. Falala-lala to that.
Ah yes. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without the music. I love it all. Well... Almost all...
NB I've sent this post to Notes from Home for her Christmas Carnival. If you're writing about Christmas, why don't you join in too?
.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
I fuond tihs fasctianing
"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
I got as far as the word "wrod" before I realised anything was wrong. Which just proves the point. But then I'm a dreadful skim reader. One of my very bad habits.
I wonder if that's why middle children are so screwed up. The parents are just concentrating on the first and last ones. (Hey, I'm a 3rd child out of 4. I'm allowed to be rude about middle children.)
I got as far as the word "wrod" before I realised anything was wrong. Which just proves the point. But then I'm a dreadful skim reader. One of my very bad habits.
I wonder if that's why middle children are so screwed up. The parents are just concentrating on the first and last ones. (Hey, I'm a 3rd child out of 4. I'm allowed to be rude about middle children.)
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
My favourite character
My favourite character in the Bible is Jonah. Not very seasonal. You thought I was going to say Mary or Joseph, or possibly a shepherd, didn't you? Well, ha ha. Wrong! My favourite character, by a long chalk, is Jonah.
Jonah is best remembered for that stint in the whale, but the rest of his story is the best bit. He gets to Ninevah, where God sent him in the first place, and he preaches to them, and they all go "Hey, yes, Jonah has a point". They repent, and live happily ever after, and Jonah says "See, God? I told you there was no point me coming here. You make me so angry. And now you're probably expecting me to be all glad and joyous that the Ninevites have repented, but I'm not. I'm angry and I'm grumpy. Aaaaargh, I'm so angry I can't even speak. I'm going to sit under this tree in the shade and be really really angry". And the story ends with God trying to get Jonah's attention, and Jonah sitting in a great big wallowing grump, probably the emotional equivalent of the belly of the whale, and not talking to him. It's marvellous.
When I get to Heaven, the first thing I'm going to do is find Jonah. I'm going to sit right down next to him, under that tree, and I'm going to join in his great big long eternal grump. And I'm going to enjoy every eternal minute of it. I think he and I will get on really well.
We'll start with schools. I don't know if he had much experience of schools, or even had children, but I expect he did. I mean, that whole whale episode was so designed to be a Favourite Kids' Bible Story down the ages, it smacks of someone who knows about children. So we'll get started on schools, and how teachers can ruin your week by expecting you to help your child produce a project, on a huge piece of poster board, about Christmas traditions in some selected nation of the world, by Friday. Don't they KNOW how much some children hate doing projects on poster boards? Don't they REALISE that Friday is very soon after Monday? (and ok, ok, I could have read the homework page on the website, or maybe my child could have communicated to me, but GET REAL, this is life). Does anyone CARE about Christmas traditions in France? I will ask Jonah if they had the tradition of teachers' seasonal gifts back in his time. You know the one. Where you feel obliged to contribute to a pot of money for someone who is doing their job, just like all the rest of us are doing our jobs. But most of us don't have jobs that involve innocent adults having to help with projects on poster board. Am I the only one who has noticed this?
You see, Heaven will be Heaven, because it will be full of people who have noticed the poster board thing. I am sure of it. I'm guessing quite a few thousand of them will have drifted towards Jonah and his tree, and it will be FABULOUS, because we can complain about poster board projects endlessly (literally endlessly). And if we get bored with that, we can move on to children and their incapacity not to strew chaos everywhere (Heaven is going to be self-tidying, did you know that?), the Post Office, churches and all their members, the media, adolescents who answer every question with "I dunno" but manage to leave out all the consonants so that it sounds like a nasalised "I uuuhhh", tax forms, sleepovers, McDonalds, customers who want to tell you about their trip to England which happened so long ago they can't remember the names of any of the places they went to, the quirks of Blogger, apostrophes in the wrong place's, library fines, and families who have the nerve to get together at Christmas - together, I tell you! - without those of their number who live on a different side of an ocean.
So Jonah, hang on in there, up there, or wherever the Nth dimension is. I am coming. I'm going to join your club. I bet it's the coolest one in town (does Heaven have towns?), with all the anarchists, the Occupy Cities people, the trailing spouses, the disgruntled mums, and all those people who just can't face the shiny smiley ones over the other side of the cloud. We will eat far too much chocolate and drink far too much wine, and be really really grumpy all the time, without it mattering one single jot. We will whitter and whinge to our hearts' content, and dance to the very loud music of rejuvenated punk rockers dressed in bin liners with safety pins through their noses and lips, who will be tediously smug about how they started the whole body-piercing craze.
And ha! I've just had a brilliant idea! We will do poster board projects... about teachers. We'll do them badly, without reading the instructions, and hand them in late (we'll need a philosopher or two to help us out with the concept of "late" in an eternal setting). Ooooh. I'm looking forward to it already.
Picture credit: phillipmartin.info
Jonah is best remembered for that stint in the whale, but the rest of his story is the best bit. He gets to Ninevah, where God sent him in the first place, and he preaches to them, and they all go "Hey, yes, Jonah has a point". They repent, and live happily ever after, and Jonah says "See, God? I told you there was no point me coming here. You make me so angry. And now you're probably expecting me to be all glad and joyous that the Ninevites have repented, but I'm not. I'm angry and I'm grumpy. Aaaaargh, I'm so angry I can't even speak. I'm going to sit under this tree in the shade and be really really angry". And the story ends with God trying to get Jonah's attention, and Jonah sitting in a great big wallowing grump, probably the emotional equivalent of the belly of the whale, and not talking to him. It's marvellous.
When I get to Heaven, the first thing I'm going to do is find Jonah. I'm going to sit right down next to him, under that tree, and I'm going to join in his great big long eternal grump. And I'm going to enjoy every eternal minute of it. I think he and I will get on really well.
We'll start with schools. I don't know if he had much experience of schools, or even had children, but I expect he did. I mean, that whole whale episode was so designed to be a Favourite Kids' Bible Story down the ages, it smacks of someone who knows about children. So we'll get started on schools, and how teachers can ruin your week by expecting you to help your child produce a project, on a huge piece of poster board, about Christmas traditions in some selected nation of the world, by Friday. Don't they KNOW how much some children hate doing projects on poster boards? Don't they REALISE that Friday is very soon after Monday? (and ok, ok, I could have read the homework page on the website, or maybe my child could have communicated to me, but GET REAL, this is life). Does anyone CARE about Christmas traditions in France? I will ask Jonah if they had the tradition of teachers' seasonal gifts back in his time. You know the one. Where you feel obliged to contribute to a pot of money for someone who is doing their job, just like all the rest of us are doing our jobs. But most of us don't have jobs that involve innocent adults having to help with projects on poster board. Am I the only one who has noticed this?
You see, Heaven will be Heaven, because it will be full of people who have noticed the poster board thing. I am sure of it. I'm guessing quite a few thousand of them will have drifted towards Jonah and his tree, and it will be FABULOUS, because we can complain about poster board projects endlessly (literally endlessly). And if we get bored with that, we can move on to children and their incapacity not to strew chaos everywhere (Heaven is going to be self-tidying, did you know that?), the Post Office, churches and all their members, the media, adolescents who answer every question with "I dunno" but manage to leave out all the consonants so that it sounds like a nasalised "I uuuhhh", tax forms, sleepovers, McDonalds, customers who want to tell you about their trip to England which happened so long ago they can't remember the names of any of the places they went to, the quirks of Blogger, apostrophes in the wrong place's, library fines, and families who have the nerve to get together at Christmas - together, I tell you! - without those of their number who live on a different side of an ocean.
So Jonah, hang on in there, up there, or wherever the Nth dimension is. I am coming. I'm going to join your club. I bet it's the coolest one in town (does Heaven have towns?), with all the anarchists, the Occupy Cities people, the trailing spouses, the disgruntled mums, and all those people who just can't face the shiny smiley ones over the other side of the cloud. We will eat far too much chocolate and drink far too much wine, and be really really grumpy all the time, without it mattering one single jot. We will whitter and whinge to our hearts' content, and dance to the very loud music of rejuvenated punk rockers dressed in bin liners with safety pins through their noses and lips, who will be tediously smug about how they started the whole body-piercing craze.
And ha! I've just had a brilliant idea! We will do poster board projects... about teachers. We'll do them badly, without reading the instructions, and hand them in late (we'll need a philosopher or two to help us out with the concept of "late" in an eternal setting). Ooooh. I'm looking forward to it already.
Picture credit: phillipmartin.info
Saturday, December 3, 2011
12 Days of Blogging
Everybody is at it. Hot Cross Mum, The Potty Diaries, Nappy Valley in New York and Expat Mum. They've all come up with versions of the 12 Days of Christmas. I wanted to join their club, so I've done one of my own, about blogging.
Incidentally I have, actually, already done a truncated version of the well-loved carol, counting down the body parts I've lost, but that was a long time ago: (all my hair, 4 wisdom teeth, 3 moles, 2 boobs, and a lymph node, I believe it went.)
Anyhoo, here is one about blogging. I'm going to cut to the chase, and start at the 12th day.
On the 12th day of Christmas, my bloggy friend sent to me:
12 Tumblrs Tumblring
11 DiggIts Digging
10 Blogger Updates
9 Wordpress Downloads
8 RSS feeds
7 Pics a-Flickr
6 Tweets re-tweeted
5 BritMums Live!
4 Angry Birds
3 Facebook Friends
2 Gurgle Loves
And a Rise in my Site Meteree!
.
Incidentally I have, actually, already done a truncated version of the well-loved carol, counting down the body parts I've lost, but that was a long time ago: (all my hair, 4 wisdom teeth, 3 moles, 2 boobs, and a lymph node, I believe it went.)
Anyhoo, here is one about blogging. I'm going to cut to the chase, and start at the 12th day.
On the 12th day of Christmas, my bloggy friend sent to me:
12 Tumblrs Tumblring
11 DiggIts Digging
10 Blogger Updates
9 Wordpress Downloads
8 RSS feeds
7 Pics a-Flickr
6 Tweets re-tweeted
5 BritMums Live!
4 Angry Birds
3 Facebook Friends
2 Gurgle Loves
And a Rise in my Site Meteree!
.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
I need your help on books
One of the great pleasures in having children is the way you get to revisit elements of your own childhood. This is nowhere more true than in reading. I have loved getting down from my mother's shelves the worn copies of books she read to me, to share with my own children.
When I started writing this post, there were three books that I loved reading as a child, whose titles and authors I can't remember. I thought you might be able to help, Bloggy Friends. A lot of you were avid childhood readers, I'm sure.
I say "when I started writing this post", because the three has been reduced to two. With the magic of blogging, as I was describing one of them, I remembered its identity. Ta-da! It's Thursday's Child, by Noel Streatfield. I have such strong memories of that one. I loved it. A girl runs away from an orphanage, and joins a family who lives and works on a canal barge. I remember how her job was to lead the horse along the towpath, how hard the work was, how affected by the weather, and I remember a scene which describes how she helped propel the barge through a tunnel, which had to be done by having two people lying on boards, one each side, and walking along the side walls, pushing the barge as they went. (Noel Streatfield describes that much better than I've done.) I remember that she is called Margaret Thursday because she was left at the orphanage on a Thursday, and how she fantasises that she is from a noble family, because she was left with finely embroidered linens.
So that was book number one. I highly recommend it for girls aged 8 to 12 (at a guess - it was a long time ago that I read it). Especially if you live near a canal, as I did.
Book number two is about a boy who befriends a dolphin calf called Wiki-wiki. I think it might be set in Hawai'i (do they have dolphins in Hawai'i?) One day there is what we would now call a tsunami, but in the book it's called a tidal wave, and Wiki-wiki is left stranded on the beach. The boy and his friends manage to rescue her. I loved that book. I read it several times. Can you help me track it down?
Book number three I remember very little of at all. It's about a girl who is something of a misfit, grumpy about life. She hears the most beautiful haunting music, played on a flute. The man playing the flute tells her it's by Debussy, and is called L'Apres-midi d'un Faune. The first time I heard that Debussy piece, in my early twenties, I suddenly recalled the book from my childhood, and thought "no wonder the girl was so captivated by this music - it's beautiful". I have never been able to hear that piece without thinking of the book. Do any of you know it? I would love to find it again. I haven't given you much to go on, but perhaps someone out there will recognise it.
While we're on the subject of books, I've just read one which I couldn't put down. It's called Cinderella Ate My Daughter (what a great title), by Peggy Orenstein. You should read it, whether you are in the business of bringing up daughters or sons, or just for interest. I can do no better (it's late, I'm tired) than quote from Amazon:
Pink and pretty or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as a source — the source — of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages.
But, realistically, how many times can you say no when your daughter begs for a pint-size wedding gown or the latest Hannah Montana CD? And how dangerous is pink and pretty anyway—especially given girls' successes in the classroom and on the playing field? Being a princess is just make-believe, after all; eventually they grow out of it. Or do they? Does playing Cinderella shield girls from early sexualization—or prime them for it? Could today's little princess become tomorrow's sexting teen? And what if she does? Would that make her in charge of her sexuality—or an unwitting captive to it?
It's really well written, witty and clever, and very easy to read. A little depressing in one way (who would choose today's highly sexualised culture as a context for raising their daughter?), but I liked the opportunity to think about the issues head-on. I highly recommend it, and I've enjoyed the author's webpage too.
When I started writing this post, there were three books that I loved reading as a child, whose titles and authors I can't remember. I thought you might be able to help, Bloggy Friends. A lot of you were avid childhood readers, I'm sure.
I say "when I started writing this post", because the three has been reduced to two. With the magic of blogging, as I was describing one of them, I remembered its identity. Ta-da! It's Thursday's Child, by Noel Streatfield. I have such strong memories of that one. I loved it. A girl runs away from an orphanage, and joins a family who lives and works on a canal barge. I remember how her job was to lead the horse along the towpath, how hard the work was, how affected by the weather, and I remember a scene which describes how she helped propel the barge through a tunnel, which had to be done by having two people lying on boards, one each side, and walking along the side walls, pushing the barge as they went. (Noel Streatfield describes that much better than I've done.) I remember that she is called Margaret Thursday because she was left at the orphanage on a Thursday, and how she fantasises that she is from a noble family, because she was left with finely embroidered linens.
So that was book number one. I highly recommend it for girls aged 8 to 12 (at a guess - it was a long time ago that I read it). Especially if you live near a canal, as I did.
Book number two is about a boy who befriends a dolphin calf called Wiki-wiki. I think it might be set in Hawai'i (do they have dolphins in Hawai'i?) One day there is what we would now call a tsunami, but in the book it's called a tidal wave, and Wiki-wiki is left stranded on the beach. The boy and his friends manage to rescue her. I loved that book. I read it several times. Can you help me track it down?
Book number three I remember very little of at all. It's about a girl who is something of a misfit, grumpy about life. She hears the most beautiful haunting music, played on a flute. The man playing the flute tells her it's by Debussy, and is called L'Apres-midi d'un Faune. The first time I heard that Debussy piece, in my early twenties, I suddenly recalled the book from my childhood, and thought "no wonder the girl was so captivated by this music - it's beautiful". I have never been able to hear that piece without thinking of the book. Do any of you know it? I would love to find it again. I haven't given you much to go on, but perhaps someone out there will recognise it.
While we're on the subject of books, I've just read one which I couldn't put down. It's called Cinderella Ate My Daughter (what a great title), by Peggy Orenstein. You should read it, whether you are in the business of bringing up daughters or sons, or just for interest. I can do no better (it's late, I'm tired) than quote from Amazon:
Pink and pretty or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as a source — the source — of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages.
But, realistically, how many times can you say no when your daughter begs for a pint-size wedding gown or the latest Hannah Montana CD? And how dangerous is pink and pretty anyway—especially given girls' successes in the classroom and on the playing field? Being a princess is just make-believe, after all; eventually they grow out of it. Or do they? Does playing Cinderella shield girls from early sexualization—or prime them for it? Could today's little princess become tomorrow's sexting teen? And what if she does? Would that make her in charge of her sexuality—or an unwitting captive to it?
It's really well written, witty and clever, and very easy to read. A little depressing in one way (who would choose today's highly sexualised culture as a context for raising their daughter?), but I liked the opportunity to think about the issues head-on. I highly recommend it, and I've enjoyed the author's webpage too.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Guess what I've just done?
Oh alright then. I'll tell you.
I've just booked my ticket for BritMums Live! Even though I don't like that exclamation mark. Couldn't it just be BritMums Live please? I had to put that "please" in, because otherwise it looked like I'd replaced the exclamation mark with a question mark, though come to think of it BritMums Live? has a certain pleasing ironic tone to it. Anyway... whatever... I've booked. (And I have to add that I prefer the title to CyberMummy.)
Do you know who is responsible? My big brother. Yes. Charlesinparis. When we were in Chicago a few weeks ago, and he was generally looking after me and being fabulous, we got talking about blogging. And he said
"What on earth was all that about?"
And I said
"What?"
And he said
"All that [putting on a little girlie voice at this point and waggling head] Oh, I don't know if I'm going to go to the conference or not. We all KNEW you were going to go. Of course you were going to go."
I started protesting, because honestly, last time round, (and the time before, come to think of it), I really didn't know whether I wanted to go, but the more I used the word "honestly", or the word "really", the more he waggled his head and shrugged his shoulders and went all older brother-ish on me.
Maybe he had a point. Anyway, the net result is that this time, I've signed up super-early. So early that it's frankly a bit silly. I mean, I don't even know if we'll be in England next June. And there's no returning the ticket back to BritMums Live! if I turn out not to be (in England, I mean, not Live!... I certainly hope to be Live!) However, I can sell it on to someone else, and I'm hoping there's enough Goodwill Live! in the blogosphere that I'll be helped out and I won't be saddled with a ticket to an event I can't get to. I'm hoping.
It was the yoga session, and the promise of cake and wine, that finally tipped the balance for me. Oooh. I've just thought of a much better name for the event. CakeMums WineLive! Doesn't that sound more appealing? Really. Have the organisers got no marketing expertise at all?
.
I've just booked my ticket for BritMums Live! Even though I don't like that exclamation mark. Couldn't it just be BritMums Live please? I had to put that "please" in, because otherwise it looked like I'd replaced the exclamation mark with a question mark, though come to think of it BritMums Live? has a certain pleasing ironic tone to it. Anyway... whatever... I've booked. (And I have to add that I prefer the title to CyberMummy.)
Do you know who is responsible? My big brother. Yes. Charlesinparis. When we were in Chicago a few weeks ago, and he was generally looking after me and being fabulous, we got talking about blogging. And he said
"What on earth was all that about?"
And I said
"What?"
And he said
"All that [putting on a little girlie voice at this point and waggling head] Oh, I don't know if I'm going to go to the conference or not. We all KNEW you were going to go. Of course you were going to go."
I started protesting, because honestly, last time round, (and the time before, come to think of it), I really didn't know whether I wanted to go, but the more I used the word "honestly", or the word "really", the more he waggled his head and shrugged his shoulders and went all older brother-ish on me.
Maybe he had a point. Anyway, the net result is that this time, I've signed up super-early. So early that it's frankly a bit silly. I mean, I don't even know if we'll be in England next June. And there's no returning the ticket back to BritMums Live! if I turn out not to be (in England, I mean, not Live!... I certainly hope to be Live!) However, I can sell it on to someone else, and I'm hoping there's enough Goodwill Live! in the blogosphere that I'll be helped out and I won't be saddled with a ticket to an event I can't get to. I'm hoping.
It was the yoga session, and the promise of cake and wine, that finally tipped the balance for me. Oooh. I've just thought of a much better name for the event. CakeMums WineLive! Doesn't that sound more appealing? Really. Have the organisers got no marketing expertise at all?
.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
What I would love about my blog if I were you
A cheeky little title, I know.
This is what I would love about reading Iota's blog, if I were one of you. When I started blogging, it was because I was struggling to make sense of living in a new culture. I was beginning to make 'real life' friends, but that seems to take forever in a new place, and I was lonely. Blogging was an addiction, which in itself isn't bad (hey, who'd be reading this if blogging wasn't a little addictive now and again?), but at that time, I think the addiction spoke of isolation and unhappiness.
Then I had cancer. Remember that? I guess my blog was hard to read at that time. You must have been holding your breath, wondering what the next thing was going to be. Hoping I was going to be ok. Feeling the fear in my situation, even though I was so darn upbeat and jolly about it all, and trying not to let those fears of mine hook into your own buried ones.
The past couple of years have seen a rebuilding of life. But I'm not just back where I started. That was something I really resented about cancer. I was wailing internally "I just want my life back", while at the same time knowing that it was never going to be the same again. But ooh, get me (as they say... well... as I say anyway). I like my life a lot a lot a lot now. I've got a green card. I've got a job (I mistyped that as "I've got a nob", which made me laugh). I love my job. I'm doing a Masters degree. I love my Masters degree. I love how you always see it written with a capital M. Why is that, I wonder? I don't see why it deserves a capital. I actually love living in America (I hear the gasps of surprise followed by the cheering). I am happy. I am content.
You've probably spotted that I don't blog as much. You've guessed that I'm just too busy at the moment. The recycling of a couple of old posts was a bit of a giveaway. Yes, I'm busy, and my blog is getting a little neglected. But don't you even love that about it?
So that's what I would love about my blog if I were you. It's the story of a chunk of a life's journey that was a down and an up, a valley and a journey out of it. I would find that hopeful and heartening. It's more than that, though. It's the story within the story that I like. I feel a difference in myself. I've grown as a person so much over the past 4.5 years (yup, that's how long I've been blogging). I like myself more than I used to. I wonder if you can tell. I wonder if you sniff it out, in the gaps between the words on the screen, in the spaces between one post and the next.
And of course that's what I love about your blogs I've followed over the years. The tales of your lives: the narratives, but more so, the stories of who you are, who you were, and who you're becoming, which somehow, through the magic of writing, leak through the typewritten word.
This is what I would love about reading Iota's blog, if I were one of you. When I started blogging, it was because I was struggling to make sense of living in a new culture. I was beginning to make 'real life' friends, but that seems to take forever in a new place, and I was lonely. Blogging was an addiction, which in itself isn't bad (hey, who'd be reading this if blogging wasn't a little addictive now and again?), but at that time, I think the addiction spoke of isolation and unhappiness.
Then I had cancer. Remember that? I guess my blog was hard to read at that time. You must have been holding your breath, wondering what the next thing was going to be. Hoping I was going to be ok. Feeling the fear in my situation, even though I was so darn upbeat and jolly about it all, and trying not to let those fears of mine hook into your own buried ones.
The past couple of years have seen a rebuilding of life. But I'm not just back where I started. That was something I really resented about cancer. I was wailing internally "I just want my life back", while at the same time knowing that it was never going to be the same again. But ooh, get me (as they say... well... as I say anyway). I like my life a lot a lot a lot now. I've got a green card. I've got a job (I mistyped that as "I've got a nob", which made me laugh). I love my job. I'm doing a Masters degree. I love my Masters degree. I love how you always see it written with a capital M. Why is that, I wonder? I don't see why it deserves a capital. I actually love living in America (I hear the gasps of surprise followed by the cheering). I am happy. I am content.
You've probably spotted that I don't blog as much. You've guessed that I'm just too busy at the moment. The recycling of a couple of old posts was a bit of a giveaway. Yes, I'm busy, and my blog is getting a little neglected. But don't you even love that about it?
So that's what I would love about my blog if I were you. It's the story of a chunk of a life's journey that was a down and an up, a valley and a journey out of it. I would find that hopeful and heartening. It's more than that, though. It's the story within the story that I like. I feel a difference in myself. I've grown as a person so much over the past 4.5 years (yup, that's how long I've been blogging). I like myself more than I used to. I wonder if you can tell. I wonder if you sniff it out, in the gaps between the words on the screen, in the spaces between one post and the next.
And of course that's what I love about your blogs I've followed over the years. The tales of your lives: the narratives, but more so, the stories of who you are, who you were, and who you're becoming, which somehow, through the magic of writing, leak through the typewritten word.
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