I’m as empty as the cornhusks that float into our yard in the fall months.
My words are being saved up right now, saved for the paid work that requires me to float lightly over my keyboard, engaging a sense of humor that is, for the most part, dormant at the moment.
I’ve entered the phase of pregnancy where I am going inside myself; preparing for the mental and physical work, for the work of the heart, that will be required of me in just a few more days.
I’m nesting - the nursery is furnished and the onsies and blankets are washed in Dreft. The diapers and wipes are waiting patiently in my new caddy, waiting to swaddle and clean a small bum.
My baby is forcing me to slow down. I am listening.
So I can’t express what I’d like to here, so I am sending you to visit Don Mills Diva, who so eloquently expresses what I feverently believe about the possibilities of blogging in this post about her new job.
For years I wrote in private as I do here. I kept a diary and I played with language and emotion and storytelling - and no one ever saw the blood, sweat and tears that made up the words on those pages. Blue ink, black ink, loopy cursive penmanship inside cloth-bound books that still sit in my basement.
Yes, I wrote for emotional release.
More so, I was writing for an imaginary audience, one denied me by a series of powerful and smug editors who gleefully decided what was good work and what was trash.
I often wound up in the trash.
No longer. I have found a space. I have turned on the volume. No longer silent, my voice echoes through the blogosphere. You seek me out or you don’t. But what matters is that I am heard.
By someone. By anyone.
We are the new radicals.
There has been so much talk in the ’sphere about commercializing your blog, writing for profit and for traffic and how to arrange your template just so, as to not alienate the casual surfer who might stumble upon you.
Tactics and marketing and profiteering.
I understand the urge. I do, really.
But oh! Friends. Please take a minute to recall my friend Charlie Brown’s sad Christmas tree. Quiet, small and in need of tending.
Just a modicum of love and affection turned that sad tree into a glorious symbol of love.
Uncluttered sidebars and pretty headers are all well and good. But what brings me to my knees are your voices, raised together in a beautiful, if cacophonous, symphony of ideas and beauty.
Keep writing. Write! That is why they come.
To listen.
I hear you. Do you hear me?
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:58 am
Yes, Mrs. Chicken, I do.
YES.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:23 am
i hear you loud and clear sister.
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:15 am
Yes - I hear you!
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:33 am
I hear you and am glad to be doing so!
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:45 am
I do hear you, and it’s wonderful.
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:45 am
I hear you!
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:49 am
Hearing you louder than you know. So much louder.
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:58 am
Yes I do. Sometimes all we need is someone to listen.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I hear you, so beautifully put.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I had the same issues with private journals. They ended up blank and empty after a few weeks and ultimately in the trash.
I hear ya…Can you hear me now?!
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I hear you and I am so glad I do
July 23rd, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I hear you, and I wish more people heard me. There is so much inside that wants to come out…
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Loud and clear! Can’t wait for shaggy!
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Loud and clear, over the roar of summer. Loud and clear…
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I hear you. I thought you might like that post because I have always sensed that we have the same thoughts about what we do here in the blogosphere every day - thanks for the linky love.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I hear you. You know I do. Thank you for your words - they gave me mine back.
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Hearing and here.
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Love reading your beautiful words…thanks!
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:54 pm
I hear you loud and clear! I love listening to what you have to say!
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:20 pm
I hear you! I have my own take on the radical thing - should be up tonight.
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Hearing you!
That need to be heard is exactly why I started my blog. I want others to read and say “yeah, me too”.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:41 pm
That was FAR from an empty post.
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 pm
like a damn songbird trilling just for me, i hear you.
and your child, your soon-to-be wee one!
*tears up*
happy for you.
July 24th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Ears and eyes are turned towards you around the world. Quietly waiting.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:09 am
I absolutely hear you!
July 24th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Eff yeah. It’s an act of defiance and power to speak up. Rock on.
July 24th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I hear you!
Although, seriousness aside, I now keep hearing that Verizon commercial in my head…”Can you hear me now?”
This was a beautiful post Amy, and thanks to the link over at DMD’s place as well. It’s been ages since I’ve been over there.
July 25th, 2008 at 8:39 am
I hear you. And I’ll be back.