Getting Personal

I haven't blogged much lately. Heck, I haven't written much lately, unless one includes the multitude of email messages that fly out of my fingers daily, and all of that Enki work I did in February.

I'm stuck again. Not at a loss for words, but not sure where to direct my energy. There are so many homeschooling blogs out there; what purpose does mine serve? Other people write far more eloquently, persuasively, humorously, etc. about the green movement (or downsizing, or peak oil, or whatever particular niche of the green movement they are part of). A cooking blog is out; again, there are thousands of them, and I almost never bother to take pictures of my food, much less post them.

What I see, when I look at that paragraph, is disintegration. A pulling away from the wholeness that is me in an attempt to find an audience. The thing is, I don't need an audience. I need a vehicle for expression. To me, there is a big difference.

The reality is, I am claim many titles. I am an environmentalist. A home educator. A mother. A cook. A crafter. A gardener. A friend. A person. Well-rounded, I think, although I am definitely a generalist and not one who specializes (hence my love of all crafts rectangular). I enjoy many things, but there are few things that I am truly passionate about: my love, my children, and life itself. My vehicle for expressing my passion is (mostly) words, spoken or written. So, perhaps I would say that words are also my passion.

When I break my writing into pieces I lose my voice. When I try to be whatever I think a reading audience might want, I lose my authenticity. A comment about how personal a specific blog post was sent me scurrying away from those parts of myself that hadn't been sanitized for the blogging public.

When I reread my blogs (oh yes, there are many, including some that no longer exist), I see the evolution of my thoughts, the changes I've made in how I do things, and the ideas that come to me only when I write. There are boring posts, silly posts, and occasionally, profound posts. I claim the profundity, because I myself am deeply moved by my own words as I reread them. At times, wisdom flows from my fingers, wisdom that I did not recognize until the words were written. I believe we are all wise (and also all foolish), and I will not pretend that I am not at times moved by my own writing in order to preserve some notion of humility.

Of course, the words only reveal the wisdom that comes from living, from being in a moment and realizing the beauty in it. A capacity that we all have and that we all can share. We can all move past information and into experience. I'm tired of the information age, and my opinion is that we risk losing experience and authenticity in the midst of so much information.

All of my other blogs are turned off for now. I decided that I would write one place for awhile, and Red Dirt Life is the one blog that best encompasses the wholeness of my life. I thought about keeping it private, but my writing connects me to some people with whom I might not connect much otherwise.

Expect the personal. Expect the profound, the silly, the boring, the mundane. Know that I am a human being whose expression comes through words. I may not always be eloquent, but I am striving to always be myself.