Morning Musings

Tuesday morning is here and it’s just a few minutes after 4. I am in need of a cup of coffee and I have it now, ready to be sipped and savored. Ah! That’s much better.

Now I need to answer the question that was posed to me (indirectly) last night. Why do I have a blog? I didn’t answer the question and I have thought a lot about it since then. I suppose I should know “why” as well…and here’s my (indirect) answer.

First, I enjoy reading. In my early school years, I was absent quite often because I had asthma. I fell behind in all subjects. I couldn’t read and I couldn’t spell and I was in the 3rd grade. Then; one day, out of the blue…a revelation! The words made sense to me and in no time at all I had caught up to my classmates in reading and spelling. And since I had to spend so much time at home, books became my passport out of the house. When I was reading, I was no longer lying sick in bed; I was living a life of adventure and thrills.

And I have continued to read, all of my life. I still buy books, though I have a library card and I use it as well. I read 2 newspapers every morning; the ink and paper variety, plus 2 or 3 on-line news sources that show up in my in-box automatically each day. I can’t even imagine life without books, magazines or newspapers. Do you remember that movie about the robot that read everything it could find, all the while exclaiming, “Input! Input! More input!” That’s me…

And what does reading have to do with posting to a blog? Well, reading can be compared to a one-sided conversation. The author speaks and you listen. I can only do that for so long and then I feel a need to enter in with my own comments. And in a world without blogs, that’s hard to do. As you may know, I have kept a journal for the past 15 years and that has been one way for me to enter into the conversation. Also, if you were to search my computer’s hard drive, you would find hundreds of documents that I have written during the same time. And I still write. I have an ongoing work of fiction that I keep returning to every few weeks. It doesn’t seem to progress very well, but I enjoy the writing process.

Okay, now you know why I write. But what about the blog itself? Well, I ran across blogger.com about 3 or 4 years ago and I subscribed and began a private blog. You can still do that. Post your thoughts and opinions and no one can read them, no one at all. Talk about a one-sided conversation! That didn’t hold my attention for long and I really wasn’t ready to share my writings with anyone. Then, one day, a friend of mine sent me a link to his new blog and asked if I was interested in such a thing for myself? I remembered my earlier attempts and found my way back to blogger.com where I was recognized and welcomed back. (A “cookie” trick) I decided to make my blog a public one; after carefully editing all of the old material I found in it.

For me, a blog is a place for a conversation. It’s a place for me to comment and to provoke thought. It’s a place to share. Haven’t you ever had an "out loud" conversation with your television when you heard some outrageous comment? That’s a blogging moment, though a private one. I rarely think of my blog as a public forum, yet I am reminded of that every once in awhile when I get a comment from a stranger.

As I just said, it’s simply a conversation. If you were sitting here in my study with me, right now…we would be holding the same conversation. I would share my thoughts and I would hope to provoke you with them. I would show you some of the photographs I have taken and I would tell you about my garden. Just as I do with my blog now...