"The blog thing" at 5 years

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My first blog post

Five years ago this week was my first blog post. You can see it above, though the template was different. My sister Ginnie ("Bootsie" to me) was my first and only commenter for some time and the first person I knew who had a blog (the wonderful In Soul). Three months later, my "brother" rauf introduced himself from India, and much more of the world opened to me via his posts at Daylight Again. And so the wonder began. Let me wander as I wonder at the full hand of these years.

∞ I picked the name synchronizing after seeing my hand held device "synchronizing" with my computer when I linked them at the end of a work day. I liked the idea of bringing things together in some kind of unity. I changed it to synch-ro-ni-zing, adding the hyphens, to sort of help people understand that "synchronizing" is different from "synchronicity."  This blog isn't necessarily about meaningful coincidence (synchronicity), but more about the intentional pairing of things.

∞ My blog is just as eclectic today as it was five years ago. You might find Paris paired with Bishop the barncat, memories of my mom with a walk in the meadow, or raptures over a sublime salad during a long, beautiful winter. I just tell you what's going on inside. This past year I've done that more in poems, because I've been writing more poems, a direct result of being freshly and deeply inspired by blog friends. You know who you are.

∞ Speaking of blog friends, I have met some of the most wonderful people of my life, here, in these five years at synch. There is more talent, imagination, insight, knowledge, wisdom, humor, experience, story-telling skill, beauty, strength and love here than anyone who doesn't blog might understand.

∞ As a result of these friends and conversations, I have changed. I have grown more confident, better at writing, better at photography, better at life, better at me! It has been like a non-stop class in the arts and humanities, critical thinking, communication, and the soul's journey. The world has shrunk, and so have I. I am less, and I am more.

∞ Blogger has gotten better and easier to use. I pay $3.95 a year for this space, since I overflowed my space limit sometime in the last year or two. I'd say it's a pretty darn good bargain. Compare it to, say, a Burger King Whopper ($3.29).

∞ Two years ago today I received the honor of Blogger's Blog of Note, eleven days after my friend Barry of An Explorer's View of Life received the same honor. I was fortunate to find him through that award, instantly enthralled by his story-telling sweetness. Of course we didn't know we would lose him the next year to cancer. I rejoice, and gasp, whenever I see his comments in old posts around the blogosphere. He is still with us, but I miss him.

∞ Vastly more important than Blog of Note, immeasurably more, is the reward of being together with you, in this heartland. Hear what Walt Whitman meant in his poem "Song of Myself," for yes, this blog is a song of myself! always about myself, because it is from my heart. Yet for me and for you and your blog, our songs are like his song. The song of "myself" is not just about me, but contains much more . . .

“ . . . in all people I see myself, none more and not one a barleycorn less
and the good or bad I say of myself I say of them . . .”

“I am large, I contain multitudes.”

“For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

And this from his Song can be our guiding light, because while we read each other's words (and lots and lots of books), as Rumi says in a similar vein, "Let the beauty we love be what we do. / There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."

"Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through
the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self."

A little gift of gratefulness

In the list of traditional gifts for [wedding] anniversaries, five years is celebrated with gifts of wood. It feels appropriate seeing the spruce bough in my first post, in light of this. And also in this light, I would like to celebrate my full hand of joy and gratitude by sending one of you a [humble] hand painted wooden ornament of a special bird here on the farm: a bluebird. It will look something like the one I painted for Peter's girlfriend for Christmas, below. (I just started tole painting, cultivating my dormant Swedish roots from Grandma Olive.) After wandering through the bag of friends who leave a comment at this post, I'll announce the person I randomly choose (with List Randomizer, so cool) on the anniversary of my blog on Friday, January 21. Then I will paint a bluebird, with you in mind specifically, whoever you are, and with the bluebird in mind in his round russet breast and shy, quiet presence. And I will paint meditating on the rest of you too, and the connections we hold so dearly in our hearts. This gift is a way to be reminded that we are physical beings, who touch and feel material things. The blog thing is real.

But even though our blogs are tangible -- seeming somehow indelible on the Internet -- and our blog friends are true friends, we and our blogs will fade one day like leaves of grass, like wood dust. But oh, my friends, we are also stardust.

 Though I incorporated the crack in this slice of ash wood

into Andrea's painting, the disk I paint for one of you will have no crack,

I pray! Don found beautiful seasoned oak

and has already cut the piece.

This could be your piece of wood :)

-- about 6" diameter, with a bluebird from the farm.

I'll gladly mail it anywhere in the world. 

(I have also created several other blogs. Oh dear. Yes I would create one a month just to design it if I had time to maintain them all. Currently: daily posts at RUMI DAYS and A Year with Rilke (the latter with Lorenzo of The Alchemist's Pillow) -- see sidebar for regular updates. These daily readings are nourishment for my soul.) 

the bell rings for health

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Come in, please sit down, don't mind the bell, I'll tell you about it in a minute. Here, put this cushion behind your back. Now, let me introduce you to my friend Barry.

I first saw a crowd gathered around this fellow in January last year and moved in close to see what all the hubbub was about. Everyone was jostling and humming and then all around people started shushing. So we hushed. Then Barry told a story. After he was done, I thought, how'd he do that? His story was ordinary, just something about living in Toronto, or maybe it was some mystery in the woods he and his cutey black dog Lindsay found on their walk, or something smart his painter wife Linda said. I don't remember. But it really doesn't matter what the story was about. It was the man's charm, his humble view of himself as a sort of funny ordinary guy who faces life squarely and dutifully, that made me go back regularly with the crowd on the bluff and find something true, and lovely.

A couple months after I joined the Barry-listening crowd, we were all dealt a whammy blow. Barry was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. His narrative changed, but his humility, charm and humor strengthened - or maybe it was just that his true character was more exposed. We listened with hands to open mouths and welled up eyes as he told about scans and tests showing that his cancer had metastasized from the esophagus to his hip, ribs and spine. Even cancer cells crowded around, as if to listen for how his story would unfold. But everything in him and in us the crowd said No to that army. Barry has pulled out chemo, meditation, relaxation, a healthy diet - whatever he can to prolong his story telling days, and we offered him the best advice we'd heard too. He was willing to try almost anything, because after all, he loves the Living thing.

He's an explorer of life, this Barry. These last months he got to examine the deep dark side, and we got to listen, cry, pray, meditate and walk alongside him for his health. Thursday, this very week Thursday, February 18, Barry completes his chemo treatment at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto at 2 o'clock. There is a bell there. When Barry completes that last chemo treatment, he will ring the bell loud and steady, and throughout Princess Margaret Hospital people will cheer, applaud, whoop! That global crowd listening to Barry's story? We'll be ringing bells around the world and cheering and whooping too. At 2pm Thursday my cell phone alarm will ring in my university office. I'll stop what I'm doing - maybe a student will be sitting there, wondering what happened - and I'll close my eyes, thank the Universe for Barry, for his survival, for my friend Inge beating breast cancer, for my own life after melanoma, for all our loved ones who suffer through illness and disease, and ask if we could please be allowed to explore the world with Barry a while longer.

There is a little sign near that bell at Princess Margaret Hospital with a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"What lies behind us, and what lies before us,
are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

Read Barry's plan for ringing the bell here. If you join the crowd and ring yours, it will be like D-Day. And oh, I have a story Mom told me about that. On the 6th of June in 1944, Mom and Dad lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. They were working in the tobacco fields to supplement my dad's pay as itinerant preacher. Suddenly on that warm sixth of June, bells began ringing all across the valley. Their neighbor came running out, "What happened, what happened?" My dad replied, "It's D-Day, the Allies have invaded Normandy!" The farmer retorted, "Oh, is that all, I thought the pigs had got out!"

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journaling

Introspective people like to keep a journal.

This is just a sample of the journals I have. All but one (the orange spiral) was given to me by discerning friends and family. Lesley got the pretty brown-green-aqua set on the right and the olive ribbon one as giveaways at design shows. So nice that she thinks of her mother.

There is promise in empty white pages, and the time and effort of writing down thoughts and feelings means my own life is special, important. I can work through problems or figure out my mind.

I also confess that I take narcissistic pleasure in seeing my own hand writing, even though my weak wrists have caused it to deteriorate seriously. But even in my chaotic scribbles there is comfort. As someone said, the act of writing by hand feels connected to the heart. Because this is true for me, I often start a poem by writing down initial thoughts by hand, then typing them into a Word doc for easy editing.

Most of the white pages in the books above have not one mark on them. The truth is that I don't do much writing in journals any more, though I value it.

There's no denying that blogging has taken the place of some journal writing. We all expose ourselves in varying degrees in these public spaces, but private thoughts can still be hidden between the pretty covers of a blank book. Now if I'd been journaling lately, I might have written down how nice it was to get the Blog of Note honor, that it stretched my capacity to keep up, and that I'm tickled to be off the main Blog of Note blog page now. I am enjoying new friends, and I am quite happy to have things settle back to a dull roar, as we used to say at our house.

thanks to Blogger

It's time to put some flowers round the room! I was stunned to see that synch-ro-ni-zing got Blog of Note Friday. Thank you to Blogger, and to all you nice people for visiting. Have a warm, cozy weekend.