what we must

Here’s the thing. What if nobody read my blog? Would I blog? The answer to that seems fairly self contained as I am relatively sure that there are only a handful of faithful readers, and only a few of those who can cut through the preponderance of B.S. that lurks in every writing to find themselves reading on a regular basis. but then:

I am not a writer.

I can’t even tell you why I blog or what my blog is about even though this fact in itself may be why only a devoted few will ever keep coming to the blog in the first place, but then, while I have felt the desire to attract readers and occasionally will yield to the temptation to publish something heartwarming or gritty, most of the time, my blog is just about all of the crazy s**t that is floating around in my brain, and a somewhat half hearted attempt to occasionally be analytical about my own self analysis.

Not that you can trust any of this. I am not an analyst. But I do believe that we need to listen to ourselves, to our thoughts and to our dreams. Especially to our dreams as dreams are just parts of our own self talking with one another. That being said:

I don’t dream about dating my sister (which she will be glad to read because I know she is one of the half dozen or so that does keep reading) but I did dream about smoking a cigar last night, or at least SUCKING on one like some G.I. gung-ho sergeant from any of a dozen war movies. In fact the dreams have been powerful lately and when my sister was here the other day I recounted a dream to her early in the morning in which I was arrested tried and nearly convicted for rape, theft, and drunk driving. The dream really got out of control when the jury of my peers ended up being my siblings who materialized out of the columns and absolved me of my sins just before the dream wrapped itself up like a day time soap opera when the whole thing became a dream within a dream.

Blogging isn’t always all it is cracked up to be. Neither is dreaming or painting or any of a myriad of other activities, but then, really, nothing ever is. It just is what it is. Our job is to get used to this fact while occasionally adding rhetoric or poetry or something. That I can do. But usually it is at the expense of common sense.

A close friend recently told me that he was probably going to stop blogging soon, if he hasn’t already because he felt his readership was compromised. I felt perfectly at home in this conversation because he was quoting me when he made the decision to turn the machine off. So many friends these days have dropped off the blogging bandwagon, either because of personal problems, time constraints, or that blogging just isn’t what I thought it was going to be.

Gradually anyone who puts him or herself out there begins to realize that the things that we say have a way of coming home to us. But this is true whether we are blogging or walking through the halls at work or in the grocery store. There is an inverse relationship between the closeness of the people we make idle comments to and how quickly those comments find their way back.

The choice here isn’t what do I say or not say on facebook or in my blog or in twitter or in any of a dozen other outlets. The choice is of choice. How much do I risk. We start out thinking we can risk it all and gradually pare down the list until we think “this is all I have” and “this is not enough” and rather than admit the futility of the whole thing we just walk away. But really the fault isn’t in how we risk ourselves it is in the what. I see this choice as a flower. Choose this. Choose some aspect of yourself. Start small and let it grow. Risk this and watch it bloom. Watch it develop. See where this thought can lead and everything else is, well, personal or sacred, then the choice isn’t about what needs to be cut away, but what else can be added. Otherwise, nothing is risked and nothing is ventured, and so, as they say, nothing is gained.

So I persist, even though I am sure to get a phone call from my sister, and my analyst (if I had one) I wander through the ah ha-halls of my imagination, tugging on the strings of arrant thoughts that seems to sometimes blossom, other times whither and mostly come up from the soil so easily because they were never really as fully developed as I had imagined them to be. They never bloomed. But that this, as my friend Chauncey Gardener might have said, is how the garden is tended. This is how stronger roots are made. We clear out the old growth, the over growth, the neighbors competing for resources and the weeds that were never meant to be there in the first place. We keep writing because adding poetry and meaning to life’s little biscuits is what we do.

“Dude. What is up with your Blog?”
“Why.”
“You, um, had a hard week.”

And another said “well, you seem to have had better days.”

To which I say “Yes, but when I stop blogging, painting, or otherwise creating, that is when you really need to start worrying.”