blog connections


Julie at Moments of Perfect Clarity calls them "blog crushes" and I've had a crush on her blog for a while. It's even developed into a connection. I wanted to say friendship, but although we've sent emails and even gifts, I feel a bit like its still very much a surface friendship... kind of like the connections you make in your first week at a new school (yes, I can remember that far back).

Another of my blog connections is Meri at Meri's Musings. She often comments on my posts, and I on hers and I think our lives have taken some similar paths.

Some of the blogs I read are people whose lives are totally, enviously different to mine, like Chinua with his stunning photography and incredibly beautiful children.

(My children are incredibly beautiful too...)

Others are going through different life stages to me and I feel connected to them and their experiences. Helen is like that.

Others, like Jack, I have "met" on other forums and in other places (all virtually) and I've been watching his garden grow for years.


The idea of blog connections is pretty interesting. I often wonder if I am feeling connected to people who I may not have anything in common with in real life. I subscribe to piles of blogs, mostly because I follow meandering paths from one to another and find something that is interesting. I don't always visit again regularly... sometimes its months between one visit and another.

And, of course, I wonder about the people that read my blog. Some show themselves and become followers (thank you!) and others stay hidden, or are just random visitors. I wonder about those of you who keep coming back. What is it about me that resonates with you? And is it the real me that you are "seeing" or are your own interpretations or cultural expectations colouring who you think I am?

Comments

deryck vs said…
As a hidden reader/follower of your blog I must say that it is the open simplicity and sincerity that you write with that continues to peek my curiosity and brings me back.

My own opinion, interpretation and cultural expectations definitely colours who I think you are. Do we ever truly know someone when people are in a state of constant change?
21 August 2009 at 18:27
Lynne said…
thanks Deryck!!
I had no idea you were reading.
22 August 2009 at 08:45
julochka said…
i think about this quite a lot, mostly because the posts i do which in my own mind are the really good ones aren't necessarily the ones that get a reaction. and then i write some fluff off the cuff and it gets 30 comments. i'm not sure that i really get what appeals and what makes people connect.

but when i think of my own blog reading and now certain things people said lead me to think about them and their story when i'm away from the computer, in a way that they never know about it, then i realize that we can neither share it all, nor know all of the thoughts we provoke.

i don't really know where i'm going with this...but these are the things i've been thinking about of late...

all i really know is that i'm super grateful for the blog connections i've made and i, like you, consider many of my blog friends real friends. i definitely intend to meet you in person one day and i know we will have a great time together and that we will laugh a lot.

xox,
/julie
1 September 2009 at 23:14
molly said…
you have a great blog--i've read lots of posts tonight and could comment on all, but i tend to not want to stop and bother, especially if it's small like a 'nice one!', 'i hear you!' and the like! but, i'm thinking it...
5 September 2009 at 04:23
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

the writer formerly known as...

Twenty years after I was born a Brooks, I became a Wilson in one of those happy-ever-after fantasies that didn't quite work out the way I had planned. But Wilson was a nice name, and eminently preferable to Brooks (which in Afrikaans means underpants or knickers and led to horrible teasing at school) and I quite enjoyed it. It was one of those anonymous names that everyone could spell and I liked the fact that it was totally normal at first look, but had a secret history. The great grandfather of the Mr Wilson I married had emigrated from somewhere near Moscow to the US and like so many others with unpronouncable or "difficult" names (I think it was Tobinofsky) he was given another one. One of the legends is that Wilson was chosen from the phone book, another is that he particularly admired a Wilson (couldn't have been Harold). So, for the next 25 years or so, I built my name and reputation as the journalist Lynne Wilson ... until I met and married my new happy-ever-a...
Read more

mind the gap

I'm suffering from an excess of velleity. Velleity is volition at its weakest. It's a mere wish or inclination, without any accompanying effort. My velleity is fed by an overactive imagination... I can see in my mind's eye exactly what my dream garden looks like, for example. So when I am outside, I'm imagining a tree there, a shrub here, a winding path and a bank of flowers. so the lack of all those things and the lack of effort on my part to make them happen don't worry me so much. It certainly makes things easier when you are living with a very large garden during our excessively hot and dry summers. I'd write more... but what can I say? Velleity strikes again.
Read more

happy birthday to "the Arch!"

Image
tenacity and hope in the most unhospitable of places " I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ"   I often think of Ghandi's famous words (even if it is not completely clear that it was actually he who said them) and use them as a measure and a reminder for the way that I try to live my life. I use them as a measure for other people too. For me, professing to be a Christian means that you have voluntarily set the bar that measures your behaviour, your reactions and the way that you live your life, every moment of the day. (Even when no one is watching). It is a particular joy to come across an individual who actually practices what he preaches. Someone who, like Paul, could say "Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ". For me,  Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu who turns 79 today, epitomises that example He is the elder statesman of South Africa and has been described as the conscience ...
Read more