Tag: Blogging

Walking. With you…

Live & Learn55 Comments

4:35 a.m.  73° F.  Humidity: 90%, feels like 150%.  Cove Island Park walk @ Daybreak.  439 consecutive days.  Like in a row.

Clouds hang heavy. Rain begins to spit. My Birds, are mostly in hiding this morning. As is My Sun. So I walk.

And I think…

My pre-walk readings drift in…

Yumi Sakugawa: “Most of the time, the universe speaks to us very quietly … in pockets of silence, in coincidences, in nature, in forgotten memories, in the shape of clouds, in moments of solitude, in small tugs at our hearts.”

I lip sync Y-U-M-I S-A-K-U-G-A-W-A. Love that name.

And then this one from a poem titled “Silence” by Billy Collins: “And there is the silence of this morning which I have broken with my pen…”

And this one from Roxane Gay: “Why People Are So Awful Online.” She writes “Online engagement is fueled by the hopelessness many feel when we consider the state of the world and the challenges we deal with in our day-to-day lives. Online spaces offer the hopeful fiction of a tangible cause and effect — an injustice answered by an immediate consequence. On Twitter, we can wield a small measure of power, avenge wrongs, punish villains, exalt the pure of heart…At least online, we can tell ourselves that the power imbalances between us flatten. Suddenly, we are all Goliaths in the Valley of Elah. (Yet) in our quest for this simulacrum of justice, however, we have lost all sense of proportion and scale…”

I pack up my gear, and head back to the car.

And here I sit. In front of my PC. 3,577 days (posting mostly every day, mostly in a row, every day since October 2, 2011.

~162,000 comments over this time.

I can count perhaps 10, maybe less than 10 comments, that were nasty. My contribution to cancel culture —
my blog, my comments — they are marked spam, deleted, and we move on to the overwhelmingly good.

A virtual friend sending pictures of giant Sandhill Cranes standing in her driveway.  Another sending pictures of his morning walks on beaches in the Carolinas. Another playing Words With Friends.  Others sharing Camel photos on Hump Day. (Who would have thought that this stupid ritual could go on for more than 10 years?) Others, like family, consistently showing up, cheering me on, even if the art that was presented was cringe-worthy. Others quietly liking posts in the background.

Roxane, I hear you about the awful. I get it.

But not here.

Not in this community, this Oasis from the madness. No hatred here. All perspectives kindly presented are welcome.

Dana Spiotta said it best:

“Don’t think about yourself. For the sake of decency.” 

Notes:

…the hot breath of impending Armageddon

Live & Learn12 Comments

But something about Facebook brought out truly juvenile impulses…There was a bit of bad faith in smugly ridiculing these poor people. Posts tended toward selfies of rosacea-faced long-haired women in old-style prairie dresses and lots of pregnancy crowdsourcing about progesterone and wild yams. So what, if that it what they believe? Laughing at them was a shabby use of her time, but she knew part of what made Facebook — and the internet, really — addicting was simultaneously indulging your own obsessions while mocking (deriding, denouncing even) the obsessions of others from the safety of your screen. It was hard to resist, and indulging this impulse — even silently to yourself — made everything worse, made you worse, she was sure of it. … That led her to Twitter and back to Facebook, to wildly out-of-proportion, aggro throw downs between various vegan groups and carnivore groups, omnivores and fasters. Diet had apparently become the major battlefield for all the dispossessed (i.e., all of us). There was something quaintly nineteenth-century American about it all: the focus on health, the zealotry, the desire for perfection, and the hot breath of impending Armageddon. She clicked, she tapped, she followed, she liked. A few groups she joined, and always she lurked.

— Dana Spiotta, Wayward: A Novel (Knopf, July 6, 2021)

Image & Book Review from Los Angeles Times: “Dana Spiotta’s novel of midlife female rage”.

Walking. Heart & Out of My Mind

Live & Learn132 Comments

It’s been almost a full month since I’ve had anything to say on this blog. A full month. It’s as if I’ve lost my voice. Posting puppy pictures. Sylvia Plath quotes. Camels. What’s next? Memes?

This dry spell coincides with my sipping of the ~900 page tome by Heather Clark: “Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath.” And here’s Sylvia: “I will seek to progress, to whip myself on, to more and more—to learning. Always.” Live & Learn? We see where that got her, right?

257 consecutive days. My morning walks around Cove Island Park. Without a single missed day. That’s today’s climax, up top. What can one possibly say, or write about, that’s more important than THIS? That’s bigger than THIS? 

It used to matter, blogging, that is. It used to mean something. Posting every day. Sometimes twice day. Driving stats. Checking stats.  Boosting views. Gaining followers.  Counting Likes.

Today, not so much.

Sawsan poked the Bear about a week ago when she noticed posts have moved from daily to something else. I’m reconsidering this blogging thing. Running out of steam. Continue reading “Walking. Heart & Out of My Mind” →

All I need is…?

Live & Learn78 Comments

Yesterday, WordPress sent a congratulations email to celebrate another year blogging on WordPress. I deleted it without reading the details. Another year. Ho Hum.

4 days ago, Mimi drops me an email inquiring about post absences. “Out of character. What’s Up? You ok?” Uninspired, was the response.

This morning Sawsan sends a text: “3 Consecutive Days of late posts, did you move to a new time zone?” Nope. Like Roberto Duran, No Mas.

So, I walk. Cove Island Loop. Outside never fails to inspire.

I get home to jot down my notes.

I search my email trash bin to find the WordPress anniversary message.

My first post was in October 2011. 9 years ago. 9 years of Life.

I turn my attention back to this post.

And I’m blank…

Blank but for passages in Hisham Matar’s Pulitzer Prize winning memoir, The Return, and two related thoughts.

  1. “…like the fan shape the fisherman’s net leaves when it touches the surface of the water, was only momentarily perceptible…” I hope that in some small way this blog has brought some enjoyment to your day.
  2. “No amount of gratitude would be sufficient.”

Thank you all.

 

Image: Edited from bloggingmode.com

Running. With Mother Goose.

Live & Learn73 Comments

6:10 a.m. 42° F. Nippy for May.

It’s been 6 days in a row, running that is.  Why? More on this another day, this surge of something.

There she is. Mother Goose. Same spot. Each morning, every morning. Sitting between the highway, the guard rail, and the retaining wall. Sick. She has to be sick. Does she sit here all day? 

She triggered a mini waterfall of the yesterday’s events.

3 p.m. conference call. Delicate personnel situation. I’m quiet, he explains. “Listen, I’m not vindictive, that’s not who I am. There was nothing malicious in….”  He’s a midwesterner, solemn, humble, truthful.  We wrap up the conversation. I thank the small group for providing me the background.  I close: “I know vindictive, and you ain’t vindictive. I see vindictive each morning in the mirror.” They laugh. I know, they know.

6:10 a.m. Yesterday’s morning run. 0.6 miles in. A lady walker, on the other side of the road, 100 feet ahead. Face mask on. She’s pointing her finger at me, scolding.

I turn off the music. You talking to me? I can hear her now.

“You need to wear a mask. You’re putting my life, and other lives in danger. 17% chance of virus being spread by runners without masks. You. Go Home and Put on a Mask.”

“Excuse me?” Continue reading “Running. With Mother Goose.” →