blogging

Big Brother Wins

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

It’s time to say goodbye. I tried editing. Removing posts. I started with the word drink as my post searcher.

Twenty-eight posts. (I might mention that I have 1,058 posts, the rest of which do not contain this word, but would it matter?)

During my search, I read about the beauty of my girls on a glorious Sunday. Of parties I’d had a great time at. Of weekend joy and love. Of coworkers having a moment of happiness after work.

And, gasp, about that awful thing that almost everyone I know does after work, but I’m not allowed to do since I’m a teacher.

This is one of the most frightening novels I’ve ever read. It bothered me so much when I read it, but even more now. I feel I share this room with Winston:

For some reason the telescreen in the living-room was in an unusual position. Instead of being placed, as was normal, in the end wall, where it could command the whole room, it was in the longer wall, opposite the window. To one side of it there was a shallow alcove in which Winston was now sitting, and which, when the flats were built, had probably been intended to hold bookshelves. By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well back, Winston was able to remain outside the range of the telescreen, so far as sight went. He could be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed in his present position he could not be seen. It was partly the unusual geography of the room that had suggested to him the thing that he was now about to do. (1.1.12)

I sit here now in my living room in Cartagena, Spain. I have spent the greater part of two weeks sharpening my résumé, rewriting my cover letter, and completing online applications so that I can bring my family home.

They are counting on me. Trusting me. Just as they did a year ago when I told them we were coming here.

I cannot let this writing, soul-fed, heartbreaking, ever-too-honest writing, keep me from providing for my family.

And so, just as Winston faced his biggest fear of rats, took his sip of ever-bitter gin and ended the novel with, “I love Big Brother,” I am going to have to concede.

Big Brother wins. I am taking down my blog. And with it, so many pieces of my heart that it will never beat quite the same again.

The Reality of What It Is

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

Someone is cyber-stalking me.

I wish I could brag that I’ve been getting a lot of hits on my blog, but I’m not stupid. I’ve had this thing long enough to know the reality of what it is.

The reality of what it is: a release. A pounding of pen twenty-first-century style, my mighty words fighting the demons in my heart, the everyday worries that bog us all down and yet we are afraid to admit, the essence of who I am.

The reality of what it is: a few followers, five or so hits on an average day, and enough likes to perk up my early mornings and late nights, my tired eyes that never seem too tired to read or write.

So when my numbers spike for a day or five, I know something’s up. Someone is trying to find something out about me, something undefinable. I read back over the poems and I think of those moments when they were written, and the words singe with emotion, ache with the longing I felt then, anger over mistreatment, the loss, the desire… more than anything, I look back over my words and I know just exactly what, why, or who I was writing about on that day, even if the emotive distance between then and now has faded.

The words bring me back. They remind me of why I wrote them down. Why I can read over them now and feel the rainbow of emotions that courses through every human’s veins but so few are able to wholly recognize without the God-like touch of art that graces our presence on this Earth.

Someone is cyber-stalking me. Trying to discover what I was really thinking that day on Arapahoe Road. Who those shards of glass were cut for. Why they weren’t on the Brownie List. How I could see beauty in an animal jumping over a fence, a piece of chocolate, or a monosyllabic word.

But the reality of what it is: they will never know my words as intimately as I do. And isn’t that what writing, what art, is all about?

Almost a Thousand

/ lovizmytrio / 2 Comments

A thousand posts in three years. I’m almost there. So funny; I started this blog after seeing that Julie and Julia movie. Probably a hundred other people did too. I always wanted to be a writer. Things weren’t looking good in my school district. I thought, perhaps… but now it seems ridiculous. For one thing, unlike the girl in the movie, I couldn’t think of a consistent theme. I didn’t want to write every post about my primary passions: parenting, cycling, baking, education, or travel. I didn’t want to limit myself, and so I just wrote about my day, as I always have, from the time when I was young and kept a journal. The blog became more to me than just a way to possibly make a living someday–you know, all those crazy stories you read about someone making it big in seven months, their site filled with advertisements and their schedule filling up with book tours and talk show appearances.

But I realized, quite a while back, that none of those things would be me anyway. I want to write what I want to write–not geared specifically towards a mother, a teacher, a lover. And I don’t want ads, publishers, or talk show hosts to influence that choice. That would defeat the entire purpose of this blog for me, which is therapy.

Sometimes people ask me how I have time every day to write a post. It’s quite simple, really. I make it a priority in my life, and it becomes as routine as brushing my teeth, kissing my girls goodnight, or heading to work. It is so easy to say, “I don’t have to do that.” On the other hand, it is just as easy to say, “I can do that, and I will.”

Yes, my philosophy of life can pretty much be summed up by The Little Engine that Could. Why not? Those simple children’s stories that we all love and remember really have the key to success for most any society anywhere.

So here I am, almost at the end of year three, and almost at a thousand posts. I certainly never thought, when I decided to start this blog, that I would be writing my thousandth post across the sea, in a small Spanish town along the Mediterranean, where I hear the heavily emphasized tongue of Castellano more often than my own. But dreams have a way of making their way into your life, just like a daily blog post.

All you have to do is think you can. And you will. 🙂

Questions

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

Are we all (as my mother says)
self-absorbed Americans
bragging about our travels,
our milestones, our children,
our every little stupid success
in an age when technology
brings us together
and tears us apart?

What is the purpose
of these tools I use to write
these words, of
sending a message out
to potentially thousands,
but really only a few,
readers of my news?

And while I’m asking,
when will this bring,
instead of frustration
and anxiety, a sense
of belonging, of relief,
as I have begged for it to?