Tales from the Shark Tank

I’ve been thinking about the different ways the people I know use their blogs. The first anniversary of this one passed without my noticing, back at the beginning of this month. And while I haven’t written daily by any stretch of the imagination, I have kept going pretty steadily. It is one of my pleasures, writing this random assortment of thoughts I know friends – and possibly strangers – will read.

What I have noticed about myself is that I tend very much to stick to what is happening in the present and my responses to it. There are exceptions, of course. Some things demand comparison to the past, or explanation of it. I didn’t talk about my friend’s visit last weekend because we have so much shared past. I couldn’t find a way to discuss it that wouldn’t have been a book, or that wasn’t too intensely personal for a public forum. She did come, with her husband and son, and it was wonderful and frustrating all at once. Our sons were instant best buddies; mine, at least, has been asking where his friend is since they went back to Illinois. I think, if I told Joseph we were going to see those people, he’d be in the car before I had the suitcase out. This kid doesn’t like to travel, but for Uncle M. and Aunt K. and their little boy, he’d make an exception.

It’s not that the past – both personal and historical – is ever very far in my thinking. I am by nature and training a synthesist; I see echoes and patterns in everything. There are clear markers in the flow, events or people in the past that shaped my present and myself in some clearly defined fashion. My grandmother’s death, my marriage, my son’s birth, and other things that happened on a larger scale, affecting the society through which I move and therefore the path I’ve taken. It’s more that for me, the past is immanent in the present.

So I use the blog to look at where I am; to affirm to myself that yes, I am moving along in this time-stream rather than just treading water. It reminds me that the the magnitude of anything is relative to what precedes and follows it. And it lets the folks who occasionally wonder if I’ve dropped off the face of the planet know I’m still here stirring up mischief.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 29th, 2004 at 9:45 am and is filed under Ruminations and ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.