WHY BLOG?

WHY BLOG?

Yesterday I received an anonymous comment on my blog. I am not sure, but I think it was taking me to task for “doing private things in public places”. I have asked myself, too, why I share so much of my personal history with perfect strangers. Here is what I have come up with.

It is my belief that we are all much more alike than we are different. The personal is the universal. I learned this when we lived in Nashville and I was learning to write country songs. If you listen to a country station, you will notice that a lot of the songs are extremely specific and personal in nature. A few titles that come to mind are, “How Can I Help You to Say Goodbye”, “That’s Not My Truck”, “I’m Looking For Something In Red”, “Don’t Take The Girl”, “She’s In Love With the Boy” . . .It’s not hard to think of good examples. The human condition is spelled out loud and clear in every one of these songs. That’s why they work. When you listen to songs like these, and many others, you feel as if someone has been reading your mail.

And how does it make you feel when you hear a song that fits your own situation like a key fits a lock? Well, speaking strictly for myself, it makes me feel good. Even if the emotion of the song is heartbreakingly sad, it feels good to know that I’m not alone, to know that somewhere out there is at least one person (the writer) who understands. This is not a small thing. And if the writer was skilled enough to include personal details such as the name of the best friend who moved to another town, or his daddy’s watch that he gave to the mugger in exchange for his girlfriend’s life, or the phrase ‘hayseed plowboy’ which an angry father used to describe his daughter’s boyfriend, so much the better! That gives the whole story an authenticity that reassures me the writer wasn’t just making the whole thing up.

One of the worst feelings in the world is the feeling of isolation. It’s become a cliché that whenever they’re interviewing the neighbor of someone who turns out to be a serial killer, the neighbor says something like, “Well, you never would have known. He was kind of a loner – Never said ‘boo’ to anyone!”

All of our mythology, our classic drama, our movies, our “sit coms”, even the comic strips in the paper, are ways of connecting us to our larger human family. Life can be scary and lonely. Life can be bewildering and overwhelming. Life can be tragic and unfair. Life can be hilarious and touching. So when we find out that someone else is having the same kind of life that we are, we feel better for it. We feel supported.

And for the writer, the effect is the same, only in reverse. I reach out to my audience and immediately feel connected. I like knowing that somewhere out there in the world, someone is reading my little story and nodding their head in recognition, or chuckling, or sighing, or even just thinking, “Well, I didn’t feel that way when I was in that situation”! It really doesn’t matter, because all of it is connection. And for me – That’s what it’s all about.

© 2005, Robin Munson

SOMETHING TO PONDER

I’ve heard that work expands to fill the time available (or something like that – Remind me to get a Bartlett’s Book of Quotations so that I don’t mangle these axioms and I can tell you who said it).

Anyway, this morning was a case in point. Because Thursdays are mostly taken up by my time with my mother, I wanted to get up extra early so that I could get my routine done before going to Mom’s. So I was up before dawn cooking breakfast and feeding the cat. By six thirty, breakfast was over and I was washing dishes. So far, so good. But then, it happened. I was wiping off the stove and the counters, and I noticed some grime. Not your everyday grime, mind you, but some serious, built-up, greasy grime, and it was all over the top of the stove.

Now, I’m not Martha Stewart or Betty Crocker, but there is a limit to just how much of this stuff I can stand. So I took apart the stove, piece by piece, and began scrubbing from the inside out. Suddenly, it was an hour later, and all my lovely extra time had evaporated.

My big philosophical question for the day is this: Was the stove scrubbing a serious and important task that is part of my larger effort to keep my home free of chaos and clutter? Or (and this is my own sneaking suspicion) was the stove scrubbing merely a distraction to keep me from completing my writing?

I guess the only possible answer is – It depends.

First question: Am I a serious writer? In order to know the answer to that question, you would have to define “serious writer”. If the answer is: “a writer who makes a serious amount of money as a writer”, then I would have to say, alas, no. If the answer is: “anyone who takes themselves seriously as a writer”, I’m afraid the answer would again have to be, no. If the answer is: “anyone who writes something of weight or import”, I would have to say that I’m not the one to judge that. But if the answer is, “Anyone who writes every day” – I qualify.

Second question: Does cleaning matter? In order to know the answer to that question, you would have to define “cleaning”. Is cleaning merely mindless routine that must be repeated every day in as little time as possible? (In which case, it matters very little, indeed). Or. Is cleaning a way to unclutter our surroundings in order to unclutter our minds and free us for more creative tasks? Or is the act of cleaning in and of itself therapeutic and necessary to our well-being? I have to say that I have been all over the map myself with these questions, and I don’t really know the answer. (Sigh).

Well, if nothing else, this morning’s exercise at the stove gave me something to ponder – and it gave you something to read. Let’s just leave it at that.

© Robin Munson, 2005

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Lately it seems to me I have a choice. Either I can be creative or I can be efficient. But I can’t be both.

I walk around most of the time feeling guilty because I don’t have a “job”. That is, I don’t get up every morning at 6:00, gulp down breakfast, and head out on the freeway in my car through the early morning rush hour to get to an office on the other side of town. I also don’t have any children. So I ask myself,” What kind of a woman doesn’t have a paying job or children to raise”? And I answer myself, “A busy one”!

There are a million little, niggling details in my typical day, and this is a typical day. I have to pick up a prescription at the drugstore, go to the health food store and pick up a couple of supplements (presumably so that we can avoid yet another prescription), go to the grocery store for a long list of staples even though this will make my third trip to the grocery store this week, go to the bank and cash a check, go to the veterinarian’s to pick up special food and vitamins for Henry (who has kidney problems), take my winter coat in to the tailor for repairs, go to Sears and make some returns and exchanges, and of course, water the plants, do the laundry, and give the house “a lick and a prayer” in terms of cleaning. I should also go to yoga class at 4:30 –(a once-a-week tradition I only started last week, so it seems a shame to abandon it this early in the game). We are slated to have dinner with another couple tonight. I rarely make a point of sharing my daily activities with anyone. I don’t really want to bore you with such mundane details. But I’m making an exception now to make a point.

Then, oh yes – I almost forgot. I have to write. I’m writing in the morning now so that no matter what else I have to do, at least my blog will get done. Now this is the tricky part. I am in housewife mode, and I have to somehow switch gears and be “an artiste”. I don’t know how anyone does it.

They say you should write about what you know. If I were to write songs about what I really know these days, they might have titles like: “My Vacuum’s Broke (But I don’t Care)”, “My To-Do List For Today”, “Someday When My Plumber Comes Along”, “What’s Free About the Freeway?” and one that I’ve seriously contemplated, “At Fifty-five” (a brilliant metaphor about living at a reduced speed). The baby boomers would know what I’m talking about, but would they admit to it?

Anyway – If I’m ever going to get to Sears (and this is Saturday, after all), I’d better get going. Somehow, I don’t think I’m going to get around to my screenplay today.

© 2004, Robin Munson