November 15, 2010

Blogging




Window sill, Abbott and Lotus Streets, OB.

Yesterday and Today

Himself: Wrote, drove, ate, unloaded truck, played games, ate again, and a meeting.

Herself: with the quilt blog too: Didn’t drive enough, ate, unloaded truck, read, ate, meeting. Sometimes simplicity works well.

My Babylonian Captivity: Chapter November 15 through November 22: Do stop in and read Tugster's experience as a human shield. He writes that, “ i was captured in kuwait (where i was teaching in the kuwaiti air force)….”

I used to keep a diary. Every day I would sit in bed, well wrapped in quilts for the winter, and I would write whatever I had done or thought. No matter what was in my head, I wrote.



Here I am scribbling in Volume 5. One of Duck’s wool quilts was over my shoulders, and my polyester brown patterned bedspread on my lap. There are days I wrote little, but the drawings bring it all back.

I still try to keep a record of what we did, what I do, during my days. With my patently Swiss Cheese memory, how else will I know what’s happening as I fall into my memoryless dementia, so I keep a side bar with my daily bits under headings. Still I wanted more. Once I began writing here and reading the blogs of others, I felt I needed to create for myself some form of blog that transcended writing of the day to day minutia of my life.

Oh, I confess, there still are days I fall into the trap.

Here….I went to the store. There, I could be found in the pool up and down and up and down always moving, never touching the bottom. That’s not only a trap, but it’s endless. Endless interests no one and certainly not me.

Of course, each day I would like to offer some little bit, like a treasured piece of creativity on a plate, but I’m not that great a writer. I’d love to be a single topic person like Ronni Bennett, who writes about Age…today on the social needs of elders. Another example is Tugster who writes about tug boats and more in the New York harbor. There’s nothing singular about me. My brain wanders too much. Instead of writing on an individual topic, I have been attempting to distill some fraction of what I do during the day into a small essay.

Yesterday the subject was flannel sheets, and the day before I wrote briefly about finding a gap in the pictures that recorded my father’s life. Sometimes I’m a failure at essays and act solely as a reporter as the morning the Splendor was towed in.

So while I move the dust around, move the pixels here or there, I’m also trying to find some way to capture moments in words. There’s nothing endless about this task. Not at all.

11 comments:

  1. Some of us are generalists in a world of specialists. I would have a very hard time writing about a single subject -- even with its variations.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I pretty much write about the weird crap that filters through my experiences every day. Nothing meaningful or rich. But I am having a lot of fun. I wish I could write something of substance, but I don't have the gift. YOU do!

    ReplyDelete
  3. i love the last image. who did it?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have loved Ronnie's blog for a long time now. And her links to others trying to figure out this aging thingy has been invaluable.

    The images on you post are lovely.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have blogged on this same topic--sometimes I wish I could be so focused...but Im like a top spinning my way through life and who knows what sticks in my mind--could be anything--

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm like you -- I write about anything and everything wherever my alleged brain takes me. I love interesting, chatty blogs like yours. It's like a surprise gift for no reason. And lovely photos are a bonus!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. My blog posts are whatever the wind blows through my brain at the time. Truly enjoyed those sketches.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Love the drawings and thoroughly enjoy your ramblings. Don't worry about focus.

    ReplyDelete
  9. It's not that you don't focus on one thing -- it's more like you focus on everything. And this is good. Life isn't living with the particular; it's living with the general and you represent that perfectly.

    Maggie, are those your drawings??? Is this no end to your talents?

    ReplyDelete
  10. I love your rambling, your writing, your capturing of everyday moments and the simple living through them. I love your memories, and your sharing of them. Thank you for being here.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Like yours, my mind is all over the place, and I think of myself as less than good blogger because I can't stick to a subject or theme. Sometimes I feel creative, sometimes I don't...I think I like coming to your place because I never know what I'm going to find but know there's going to be something good, and almost always the pictures.

    ReplyDelete

postcards

Celebration of Life