Why I'm Here...

...blogging, that is...

I've been writing since as far back as I can remember...  journals...  poems...  starting stories, then stopping... 



I made an attempt at blogging before This Is My Offering, but it was just not ...  just not  ... Some stuff I wrote came out cohesively, other words were pieced together like a hot mess, my feelings pouring out like a volcano, and it just wasn't... the right time or place. 

The way I had set up my previous blog made me feel pretentious, and it was not a space in which I could fully "be myself".  I didn't know how to be real in the blogosphere; it's a complicated space, for newcomers especially.  I am learning to navigate within this virtual space, and how to use it to my creative advantage.  It is a process, but now I am enjoying it and discovering possibilities for self-expression.


Then I started a blog to collect what I was doing with the kids in pictures and to organize information for future reference.  I liked it but keeping up with it got boring.


I thought I had to have some big, fancy idea in order to blog successfully, and don't even know why I thought this.  When the idea This Is My Offering came to me softly, and Paul's words to the Romans followed, I thought - yeah...  I can do this...  My everyday life?  I'm living it anyway...  So here I am, blogging.

And I'm loving it!  I have begun to see blogging differently.  It's a new creative space.  It's opening up my mind, to think different things, imagine different things, feel different things, see differently.  I've been frustrated by lack of space for me to create, and I can't keep up with the desires that burn within to make art. 

My blog is an online art space, in which I've found an outlet to share my thoughts that wouldn't usually come out in conversation, like "I love to collect the fleeting," or describing a painting I saw and how ephemeral it is.  It's a place where I can share my art, like my collages, and create new art by combining words and images.  (It's also encouraged me to take lots more photographs, which makes for much adventure.)


I also like the idea of having this space to come back to as a piece of history.  I imagine blogging for 20 years and then saying to my kids, all grown, go ahead and look.  It's always going to be here (I think), existing in cyberspace, as something I can share with them, with family, and with friends.


I am not blogging for comments, although I do hope to gain community and would love for some conversation to be started from blog posts.  I have seen how wonderfully other bloggers have created and experienced community - people who comment, they read each other blogs, they help each other grow.  I want to be part of that.  I have lots of friends, but not everyone's a writer, or an active artist, or interested in my blogging (I am thankful that I have one loyal friend who I know reads, another who's peeked, and a sister who will look when she can...)  People I've seen in the blog community are writers, artists, and bloggers, obviously, and I hope to find those friends I'm meant to meet up with on this leg of our journeys.


Blogging opens up a whole new world of opportunity.  I can piece together my photographic images, and describe elements, experiences, adventures.  I can redefine myself and this place has become an extension of myself, really.  A more that I didn't realize existed.  A new branch growing...  and all that comes with it.