Dear Emily...

I used to get tongue-tied (writer's block?) at the keyboard when I would sit down to type a post. I wanted to say things just right. It's hard (impossible?) to be completely candid when there is a known (and unknown) audience. The urge to please hovers thick. And I have tried, caring a lot about what people will think.

Transferring installments from Wordpress has been revelatory. I've read through nearly every blogged word of mine. About some posts, I thought, "that was nice," or, "I like the way that came out." More times, I've gotten annoyed at my verbosity, weary of contrived metaphors, and try-too-hard stabs at wit. It was obvious (and embarrassing) where I'd written to please. Or just to post something. Maybe these things (desire for approval, popularity, dilusions about my own capacity, fear of transparency) are unique to me, my particular set of insecurities and neuroses -- maybe the tendencies are universal. Both are probably true to some extent. And I guess it all depends on one's intentions in the first place (not every blog is intended to be a virtual gathering of days, preserved for future reference and posterity. And it's a good thing or we'd all be yawning our way through a blogosphere full of mundane monologues, laundry conundrums and anecdotal musings. I'm glad people set out to showcase good design (I heart DesignMom), great photography, clever creations and witty reflections; theirs is sumptuous and inspiring fare for casual web surfers like me.)

I guess this wordy note to self is just an articulation of my ever-evolving blogging purposes. I'm still trying to please, just a different audience, a smaller one -- the one that shares my blood and my last name. I hope...I think the motives are getting more earnest (and heaped in among those earnest reasons is the intent to save room for selfishness, to give place to my own needs for creativity and discussion -- with posts that are just pretty or controversial (to spark a conversation) -- important to me, if not directly related to family history or record-keeping).

It goes without saying that I have left, and will continue to leave, some of the less desirable (and more intimate) moments out of the written record, but what I hope I'm creating here is a wrinkle in the ether where today and yesterday and everyday can, in some abstract way, exist forever. I have a bit of a preservation fetish, and I'm starting to understand why.* In essence, it's because this life I'm living right now is just delicious enough that I want to be able to taste it later. And this blog is my way of saving bites.




*explanation to come...