Back in the Game

Lately, I've been wondering whether I should begin blogging again, but there has been one thought that often kept me from writing, "What's the point?" I began to ask myself, "Why exactly did I blog? Is this a narcissistic exercise in let me tell you about me? And who exactly am I writing to?" Considering the many blogs out there, I realized I do not belong among the experts, the advice-givers or the internet excavators, so again I had to ask myself, "What is this space exactly?" And as I pondered this, these were the words that led me back to the blinking cursor:

"We write to taste life twice, in moment and in retrospection." (Anais Nin)

To taste life twice - that's what blogging has been for me over the years. I recently came back to this blog after receiving a very odd email.  I was notified that my even older blog had received a comment from a London advertising agency asking permission to use a photo from my wedding. I clicked on the blog to see which photo they were inquiring about, but I soon found myself rereading my experiences leading up to getting married. The entire experience was like flipping through an old yearbook, laughing at bad haircuts and remembering old crushes. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly the same, but it was fascinating to watch myself grow through a blog. As a matter of fact, I ended up jumping to an even older and uglier blog from my time in Spain.

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live… We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon our disparate images, by the ‘ideas’ with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.” (Joan Didion)

After finishing Into Thin Air (quite a story), I haven’t been able to get this quote out of my mind. As the quote describes, stories help us make sense of our lives; help us connect with one another (see The Truth About Stories). But are they stories if they are never told? So, I’ve decided that when I have time, I will go back to telling our story. And the audience will be – well – whoever wants to walk along side us. So, here is a promise of more entries, but with a cautionary note: I am not a designer or artist, a poet or prodigy; I am no expert at all. I am simply a humble collector of moments, and you've stumbled upon my keepsake drawer.

And there may have been one more reason I decided to start blogging again, but I'll have to save that story for next time...