I have been thinking about this recently. That I am going to take a break from my blog. My temperament is such that I normally do not like to talk a lot and make small talk. Blogging feels like making a lot of small talk to me. And I have picked up on a mean tone to it. I wrote about it in by blog about the grammar police.
I read something about Winter. That it is a time to slow down, go inward and reflect. I am ready to do that.
Blogging has been an experiment for me to see if I like writing and have any ability. I do think I have some ability. Right now I do not like having it dominate my life. I find that I do not like doing it to this extent. So frequently and so much.
I may drop in and read others blogs, comment and post again myself. Not sure just now.
Glad to meet some other friendly bloggers and appreciate the kind comments some of you have made about my posts. I appreciate the support of my friends and family as well.
“A label is a mask life wears. We put labels on life all the time. “Right,” “wrong,” “success,” “failure,” “lucky,” “unlucky,” may be as limiting a way of seeing things as “diabetic,” “epileptic,” “manic-depressive,” or even “invalid.” Labeling sets up an expectation of life that is often so compelling we can no longer see things as they really are. This expectation often gives us a false sense of familiarity toward something that is really new and unprecedented. We are in relationship with our expectations and not with life itself.”
–Rachel Naomi Remen
Rachel Naomi Remen is a doctor and author. I have read both her books several times. Sometimes I like to read them before going to sleep at night because they give me inspiration and peace. The two books I am referring to are “Kitchen Table Wisdom” and My Grandfather’s Blessing.”
Rachel struggled with her own chronic illness and still managed to get through medical school. She became a doctor when women in medicine were not often welcomed and accepted. She started out as a Pediatrician and later counseled people battling cancer. She is a member of the faculty at the University of California San Francisco Medical School. She founded the Commonweal Cancer Help Program in Northern California with Dr. Michael Lerner.
“There are people who embrace the Oxford comma and those that don’t, and I’ll just say this: never get between these people when drink has been taken.”–Lynn Truss
Unsolicited corrections of others writing is not a helpful thing. I am happy that I have not experienced it very much. But this came home to me when I read another blogger apologizing for his grammar mistakes. He went on to say something like he was learning and to cut him some slack. I interpreted this as telling the grammar police, to back off ,in a nice way. Another blogger referred to these critics as “Grammar Nazis.” I believe it is a type of trolling.
Even though I have not been “corrected” often, I did find the experience caused me to hesitate when writing and wonder if I was making mistakes.
This is wrong. We are not writing essays for an English class. If we are going to be published in a magazine, newspaper or book the editors can advise us.
I have a blogging friend who is a grammar expert and writes a blog criticizing grammar mistakes in well-known publications. I did say to her once, that I felt I could be making grammar mistakes and, as she was one of my readers, was a bit self-conscious. She said I did not have a staff of editors like a big newspaper and therefore should not worry. I hope she meant that in a good way. Not that I was making tons of mistakes but, after all, I do not have an editor. 🙂 She has liked my writing.
Blogging lends itself to a stream of consciousness style of writing. If I am truly writing that way, I am probably making errors. Sometimes I catch them and sometimes I don’t. And sometimes I don’t realize I am making them. If my writing is truly unclear, the reader can ask for clarification.
I read that Jack Kerouac did not use periods, wrote on a long scroll, and did not edit himself. I have read a few quotes from his writing and feel, if I could write as good as he did, I would feel fine about leaving out a few periods
Blogging can be a format for experimentation and play. Bloggers are creating something out of their unique perspectives and engaged in exploration. I don’t think they should be held back and made self-conscious by having their grammar mistakes pointed out on their blogs.
I did a bit of experimentation myself with this verse:
A most inspiring true story. The story of a courageous race horse named Seabiscuit.
Seabiscuit is one of the most famous race horses in America. He was ranked one of the top ten race horses in the 20th century. I first read the whole story about Seabiscuit in Laura Hillenbrand’s book of the same name. It is a wonderfully inspiring story about an unlikely race horse hero and his entrepreneurial owner, horse whisperer trainer, and slightly overweight and partially blind jockey. Seabiscuit captured my imagination when I read his story and that of the American public during the dark times of the Depression. Laura Hillenbrand’s story is pretty inspiring as well. She suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome and is often confined to her home. She wrote another book about an unstoppable WWII hero Louis Zamperini called, “Unbroken.” It is the amazing story of his survival as a POW of the Japanese after his plane crashed in the Pacific Ocean. Both books are highly recommended by me.
Here is an interesting documentary about Seabiscuit via Horse Racing on you tube:
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.”
–Arthur O’Shaughnessy
We have to have dreams and believe in possibilities if there is ever to be human progress. It is so easy to get discouraged and bogged down with all the problems in the world. Thinking that things will never change or will always be bad.
There is always the possibility of new discoveries and that the world can improve.
“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
–Howard Zinn
I want to read over and over all the hopeful and encouraging words of all the dreamers and visionaries. It buoys me up and helps me to believe in life and the future of the world.
Let’s act in small positive ways and not give in to the darkness.
“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.” ― William Faulkner
Well I should be able to write pretty good by now because I do read so much. I agree with this quote because I think you can pick up how to be more articulate in writing by reading others work. I read a bit of Faulkner’s biography and learned he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. He never graduated from high school. He used some of his Nobel Prize money to help establish the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. I like the part in the quote where he says if the writing is not good you can throw it out the window. He developed his unique style. I think all writers need to develop their own style. Try not to compare yourself to others or copy others.
“Let me tell you how I came by 1,000,000 sporks and what I plan to do with them…”
This is a prompt from Writing Nerdy this week. I have to confess that I had to google “spork” to see if it was a real word and found out it is a combination of a spoon and a fork. Another name given for this handy product is “foon.”
Hey diddle, diddle
The cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon
The little dog laughed to see such sport
And the dish ran away with the foon.
How I Came By 1,000,000 Sporks and What I Plan To Do With Them
I was standing in my backyard one afternoon when suddenly the sky clouded up getting darker and darker. A lightening bolt flashed in the distance and I heard the loud rumbling of thunder. Rain started falling and pelted the water in the pool. Were the drops getting bigger? What was making that loud splashing noise?
I walked over to the pool to investigate disregarding the fact I was getting soaked. I looked over the edge of the pool and saw there were all these white objects floating on the surface and, as they piled on top of each other, some of them were sinking.
I ran over to get the large net we used to scoop leaves out of the pool and scooped up about a dozen of these little white plastic things. I was astonished to see they were white plastic spoons. They did not look like regular spoons because they had little teeth on the edges like short prongs of a fork. I recalled getting these kind of spoons sealed in clear plastic from fast food restaurants.
I was not sure what to make of all this. I thought I better go back inside and get out of the rain. I could think about this odd occurrence over a nice cup of chai rooibos.
The splashing in the pool continued for about 30 minutes. I worked up my courage to go out and see the final outcome. I had to get close to the pool to believe what I was seeing. The backyard was flooded with about a half foot of water. I sloshed my way over to the pool.
There was a small mountain of the plastic utensils in the center of the pool. The water had been displaced by their volume. It is hard to find enough adjectives that would adequately describe my emotions. A few would be flabbergasted, dumbfounded, mystified, astounded, rattled, shocked and stunned.
I went back into the house to text my husband. How were we going to clean up this mess? I turned on my computer to distract myself for a bit while I tried to get control of my nerves.
That was when I saw the bulletin. “Plane carrying large shipment of plastic products from China struck by lightening over Los Angeles today…many Angelinos reporting strange plastic items falling from the sky during rain storm.” Another headline proclaimed, ” It’s Raining Sporks in LA! ”
We had to rent a large dumpster and hire a man to come and shovel all the sporks out of our pool. The story was written up in our local newspaper, The Acorn. The headline read, ” Chinese Sporks Overflow Local Pool.”
We decided to donate our sporks to all the schools and senior centers in the county for craft projects. Our local school made a spork sculpture in our honor. The kids made the sporks into a large hulking superhero character. They called the sculpture ” The Big Buff Foon. ”
I went on a spur of the moment trip and met my daughter in Cambria this past Sunday. It was a little over 3 hours drive about 200 miles north of where I live. The drive up was gorgeous. The most beautiful scenery starts above Ventura where the highway runs along the ocean. The day was sunny with moderate temperatures and the ocean appeared calm and blue. You get a beautiful view of the ocean up to Santa Barbara. Then again above Santa Barbara where you start getting more open countryside. Everything is still green. Up into Solvang there are rolling hills and oak trees. Above there around Los Alamos you start seeing vineyards. The vines are dormant now for the winter. Then you swing by some ocean communities again like Pismo Beach. Onward to San Luis Obispo and you connect with Highway 1 and head toward Morro Bay. Highway 1 then runs along the ocean up to Cambria.
I met my daughter at a restaurant called the Indigo Moon for lunch. She had driven down about 3 ½ hours from Northern California. There is a lovely beach in Cambria called Moonstone Beach. There is a wooden walkway on the bluffs and we took a walk there before sunset and had dinner at a restaurant above the beach. There are many inns along Moonstone Beach and we could see some people sitting out on the balconies.
Moonstone Beach by Snowfalcon on wikipedia
The next day ,after a delicious breakfast at a local diner called the Cambria Cafe ,we drove a bit further north to San Simeon. The Hearst Castle is located atop the hills here. We did not go to Hearst Castle but I have toured it in the past. The Hearst family owned many acres of land around the castle. My daughter and I said how glad we are that they gave the bulk of the land to a nature conservancy so it will not be developed. What a gift to have all this open land preserved. We went to the beach at San Simeon for more gorgeous views and saw an elephant seal sun bathing on the beach, (photo above). There were signs posted about the elephant seals stating they are a protected species. The signs warned not to approach them too close. It recommended staying back about 50-100 feet from them.
When we first saw the elephant seal I was worried it was sick, injured or worse because it was laying so still. Then it opened its eyes, looked around and, as we walked over to look, started to roll over and yawn.
It had a snout, that looked like a short elephant trunk, called a proboscis. I spied a couple of pointy teeth in its lower jaw. I thought it was a young male because of its size. It had some open wounds around its neck. I told my daughter that maybe it had gotten in a fight with an older male and been driven off. A park ranger later confirmed it was a male probably about 5 years old.
My daughter and I did a little hiking along the beach and on the bluffs above. It was so beautiful with clear blue skies and sunshine that reflected off the water. We saw a few monarch butterflies among the eucalyptus trees above the beach. The eucalyptus were so fragrant as we walked along and stepped on their fallen leaves and acorns. The Eucalyptus tree is not native to California. It was brought to California in the 1850s during the California Gold Rush from Australia.
We said goodbye in the early afternoon to make our drives in opposite directions. This trip made me realize I need to do this more often. Get out and see the beauty that is so close and is the California coast.
Elephant Seals at Piedras Blancas, California via wikipedia
“There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.” ― Mark Twain
We can not tell from the outside what a person’s life has been. When we reach out and talk to people we never know what we may find out. So many turn away from the elderly. Just think of all the interesting stories that are missed by not engaging with them. Stories from a long-lived life with lessons learned. Do we think they have nothing worth sharing? What can we learn from them?
Notes Tied On The Sagebrush 