And I don’t mean that as in a time consuming distraction. The answer to that is obvious enough.
The last few weeks have been a blur of sleep-deprived activity, with the addition of a new family member, my first serious attempt at a garden, and our brand new baby chicks. Not to mention the fact my daughter went to Kansas to help her grandfather again, because he had to have another surgery. And we’re planning an upcoming overnight trip to see the Sandhill Cranes. And there is, of course, always homeschooling.
At any rate, posts have been piling up in my mind between midnight feedings, snippets of naps and the half done chores as baby naps. Unfortunately, the computer has managed to thwart the few moments I have had to try to write. But here I am tonight, holding a very contented baby in one arm and typing one handed. To be sure, I could put him down, but just now I think I’d sooner let my blog go neglected another day, even if my shoulder is beginning to ache.
I had sketched out a post to write this evening…a sort of photo essay through the misadventures of these last couple of weeks…when I noticed a slight problem. I didn’t have enough photos. In fact, if it weren’t for my blog I fear I’d have barely any pictures of our family at all. You see, most of the ones I do have were taken with a specific post in mind.
“In the moment,” I rarely think about photographing it. Looking through the pictures I did have reminded me of a book I was required to read in high school in Germany: Homo Faber, by Max Frisch. The main character films almost everything…it is his way of distancing himself from what is going on around him. Through the camera lens, he looks on as if he were a passive observer analyzing, providing commentary, and wholly uninvolved in his own life.
The image of a man photographing his life rather than living it has stuck with me ever since. While hiding behind a camera is hardly a fault of mine, I do tend to get caught up enough in plans and dreams for the future that I forget to partake in the pleasures of right now. Odd as it maybe, I empathized a little with the young seer in Vanilla Skies as she turned to Tom Cruise and asked “Is it now?”
Is it now? When it is…when I am “in the moment”…I may not think of my camera but I do think of my blog. I suppose I photograph with words, to some degree, but it provides the same immediate exit from what is going on around me that Walter Faber found behind his camera. Rather than experiencing, I begin to analyze the experience while I compose an entry in my mind. Something I have always done, really. I am reflective by nature and before blogging, such introspections found their way into undeveloped entries in journals or on scraps of paper.
At least now collected musings of the day which make it to my blog can be shared with family and saved for the future. But still I wonder: Can you be missing something by recording too much?
I will answer your question by relating that I am NOT saving the old movie-reels of me peeing in a cup at the doctor’s office as a little child. Some things are best not saved for posterity. :]
For me, living gets in the way of blogging.
And lately I’ve been helping out a friend who has a very demanding work schedule and needed someone to take her child to school as well as pick him up 3-4 times a week. That’ll throw a kink into your life, let me tell ya’. I don’t know how traditional schoolers do it.
I also compose blog entries or forum discussions in my head as things are happening. I’ve always needed a sounding board of sorts to organize myself- when I write something down or hear myself say it out loud, it sounds different than when it is rolling around in my head, and helps me gain perspective.
My only reservation about blogging was that I would be writing about something I wasn’t actually doing-that I would become enamored of the process of writing and stop really spending time with my kids. It’s why I blog without obligation- if I was trying to make a career out of it, my OCD perfectionist tendencies would kick in and I’d be a mess.
So yes- I think blogging can get in the way of living.
[It’s why I blog without obligation] This has been the key for me too. I used to make sure I had an entry every day. If someone commented on my blog, I made sure I went to their blog and commented too. I tried not to be too controversial because I didn’t want to offend anyone or lose readers. I also made sure I limited how long my posts were so that I could be sure that people would read them. If I had a lot to say, I might right a series. And, blogging did interfere with my life.
Now, blogging consumes less time. I don’t have a list of entry ideas or written/scheduled entries. Oh, and I have made a commitment to reading again.
For me I would say no. I enjoy blogging, it’s my therapeutic time actually. It’s better than gabbing away on the phone for hours at a time and ending up in idle gossip.
At least through blogging I tend to be more careful in what I say since it’s a hard copy of it.
I read and re-read before I submit my post and I do the same with my comments. I have busier times when I blog a bit less, but I still enjoy it and see it as a benefit in my life.
They say a woman speaks over 35,000 words a day or something crazy like that?? My husband would go nuts if I used all my words on him at the end of the day. lol I save a few for him, but the rest goes into my articles. :O)
Unfortunately for my husband, he generally gets to read my posts and hear about them on the phone! But I’d probably go nutty without some form of adult communication whether on the phone, on my blog or in a forum.
At least in the evening I have time to compose a complete thought or two. A rarity through the day.
The writing equivalent of escaping real life through photos or film, might be Harriet the Spy?
Interesting question. I don’t want to spend all my time recording life, or thinking about recording it, but I am so thankful for the little snippets I capture.
I remember finding a few pages of a journal my mother wrote when I was a baby. I laughed when I read it. My mom thought I was laughing at her, but I was so delighted to read about her days as a young mother. They were so like mine.
And as far as pictures, sometimes they inspire a blog post. There are a few times I’ve taken pictures specifically for a post. Things I wouldn’t normally record: our school room or an “exploded” room.
In the end, the relationships matter more. Our arms stop aching, but our hearts our never the same.
You raise a very interesting question in this post and it is one that I have wrestled with as well. I find myself doing the same thing: In the middle of what would normally be a profound moment to be experienced, I am thinking of how I would write it as a blog post.
But isn’t this the experience of all writers and other artists?
When a painter or a poet or a novelist or a blogger experiences something, they will find themselves thinking of how to translate or filter that experience into/through their art form. To me, it is a way that we can experience life more deeply not less.
Writing — and photographing — helps me remember. Otherwise life for me tends to melt into a series of vague impressions. Things I have written about or photographed, however, become set into more concrete memories.
Don’t know what that says about me, exactly. Is it possible to be too much in the now?
I think that it has a lot to do with why you blog. While I enjoy comments and laughs provided by others who read it, bottom line is my blog is a way to communicate with friends and family – especially the out of the country sister.
For a blog like this one (you know, with an actual PURPOSE
), I can imagine that it would be a bit more thought and time consuming.
Yeah! Someone thinks my blog requires thought! I feel special, now.
Wow, great question. YES, I think you can miss something by recording too much or viewing life as a potential blog post. If someone were living like that all the time, I’d say stop blogging. If I ever get to that point, I’ll stop blogging, too.
But sometimes it is helpful to think of an event as a blog post, take yesterday for example. I spent much time in preparing for our new baby’s baptism only to have it ruined (it has to be reschelduled for next week) because my 4 year old vomited all over himself, his father, and the pew seconds before Mass started. The only thing that made me not break down and cry was thinking, “Well, this will make a great post!”
See, it keeps you a little more distant from what’s going on, and allows you to take the part of the passive observer.
Actually, your comment reminds my of a recent post by suburbancorrespondent in which she says something quite similar.
I don’t think of it as feeling distance, more like feeling the “power of story.”