Ya know this whole blog thing started out simple enough...post pics of what I’m knitting....talk about yarn...visit other knitting blogs and leave some comments and hope for some to do the same for me.
But somewhere along the line, I believe it was somewhere between Wendy and Eunny, I began to realize just how diverse blogging can be and the kind of void it can fill for bloggers and knitters alike.
Mac Daddy found this online article somewhere a while ago written by some idiot about how bloggers are just babblers who have no sense about anything. He basically said its like a free-for-all of stupid people telling stupid stories, none of which have any bearing on the world at all.
I’m figuring the guy is constipated or can’t read more than 2 sentences before he gets a migraine or more than likely he doesn’t knit (and he’s jealous).
When I was much younger, and much more naive and silly, I thought I would like to grow up and be a writer. I kept notebooks full of poems and stories and funny little paragraphs about nothing. I was not a good student but I loved literature and writing and my report card was always a crazy contrast from the “F” in chemistry to the “A+” in English.
I had learned early on that you can’t trust people or the world in general. Writing was a way to explore things safely without input and judgement from others.
For a while after my first was born I kept up the writing and even hoped I’d somehow be able to use it to make a living so I could be home with him. I guess too many things got in the way and the writing dribbled off to nothing and that was that.
I hadn’t really even thought about writing for a long, long time so when I discovered the world of blogging I was a bit surprised when an overpowering urge to write started to grow in my stale little brain. Blogging was, as far as I could see, not something that was very serious. It was more of a show and tell and a light commentary sort of thing.
But the more I looked around and the more I read the more I realized just what we had here. It used to be that nobody could publish anything without acceptance by an editor or agent or some other mysterious person in an office somewhere. Thank the internet gods but today if you can open a browser and type you can publish damn near anything you want.
Maybe that’s not always a good thing. There are certainly those using this new power for evil rather than good and people who just don’t get it. But it does mean that we all have a chance to say what we want to say and read what we want to read and we can close the browser or move on and its no big deal.
For me its like standing on the edge of a really high cliff. All those far away years of writing that were so fulfilling have come rushing back and I’m not sure what to do with them. I mean, this is a knitting blog and technically I’m trying really hard to be a designer somewhere between the laundry and the co-op and the work out. But I’ve found that my posts tend to be bland and I dread sitting down to write them because I’m afraid I’ll get off topic or say too much.
Quite literally I have remembered why I so enjoyed writing in the first place. It never had anything to do with anyone else but really was a way for me to come to terms with myself and the immediate world around me. It was a way to put things into perspective, to step back and truly look at something that may have been uncomfortable face to face.
If anything the big gap between then and now has piled on so much more that would benefit from a good untangling. It seems now that the dust is settling and the kids are a little older and I’m not consumed 24 hours a day by their needs and wants I have a bit more time and energy to devote to myself. This new found freedom, though small relatively speaking, has pushed me in directions I didn’t realize were still open to me.
To put it a bit simpler, blogging has opened up a new venue for so many of us. I always hesitate to mention people by name (at the risk of over-stepping some invisible boundary) but I’ll tell you I love to read Wendy’s stories and I enjoy her candidness. I drool every-time I read Eunny and then promptly kick my own ass for not taking the time to perfect my knitting the way that she has. I envy the Harlot for the motivation and the dedication to things like Knitters Without Boarders and wonder if I’ll ever be able to pull it together enough to be like her.
So how do the writing and the knitting get so tangled in each other? I’m still not really sure I can explain that one. I suppose, for me, the knitting is the comfort that counter balances the open rawness of the writing.
I never understood why so many people kept their blogging a secret from their friends and family. Now I know. I have thought quite seriously about starting a new, anonymous blog somewhere else just so I wouldn’t need to worry so much about things. I mean, if I were writing about something I wanted to talk about on the phone I wouldn’t have written it I would have called you.
I guess the point in all this rambling is that blogging really is more than I ever thought it would be. Its different things to different people but in the end its way cool. I truly believe it is a powerful tool with few limitations.
So back to that guy that thinks we’re all too dumb to be allowed to speak in public. Have I proven him right by taking the time to write this post? I mean, really, this entire post has been nothing but self-indulgence on my part. Does it really bear any weight for the world at all? Doubtful. But I do know that 20 minutes from now when I’m buttering bread to make grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch I will be a more content mother for having said what I wanted to say.
