Dear Blog,
You are one year old today.
I think it is time for me to serve you a miniature devil’s food cake and let you smash your face right into it. I won’t forget to take pictures, either, to try and embarrass you later on when you are all grown up and dignified.
Yes, I am so very proud of you, and I think you are beautiful, even when you have icing on your chin and in your hair. You have taught me more than I could ever have imagined.
Thank you.
It’s my blogaversary, y’all!
This time last year, I was nearly having a panic attack over the idea of pressing the “publish” button for the first time. I had no idea then how everything was going to work out so beautifully. All I could feel, as I read and re-read and re-re-read my initial post, was that old fear that has kept me from showing my writing to anyone for years and years. Decades, actually.
Let’s just say I had some unpleasant early experiences with publishing and even showing my work to people who were not careful with my developing artistic soul and who stood to gain some things by stealing or trashing or misinterpreting my work. Also, I was young, and I didn’t know how to defend myself from such attacks. Pretty soon, I was prepared to burn my work rather than let another human being read it — and indeed, much of my writing over the years has been burned or shredded or even tossed into the trash compactor. In one rather memorable instance, I even buried a bit of it under a full moon.
Sometimes you have to go for the grand, symbolic gesture.
Around my birthday last year, F. started suggesting that I start a blog, as a creative outlet. He saw how much I wrote, starting with three pages of longhand stream-of-consciousness writing every morning, and became frustrated with my unwillingness to ever show him anything. At least when we were dating he’d had the benefit of my words and stories in e-mails. Now he was getting bupkiss, and because he is an incredibly wise man, he tried to nudge me out of my stubborn and defiant stance. As he saw it, I was silencing myself and had to be stopped posthaste.
My first reaction was, “And what exactly is this thing called ‘blog’?”
Seems funny now.
Once I found out — although I still had no idea, really — I backed away from the idea as far as I could go. I believe I actually may have said things along the lines of how I never could do that, how it would be painful in the extreme, how I’d never have the courage. A few weeks later, when F. brought it up again, I told him I flat-out refused to even consider it, that he couldn’t possibly understand, and that he was an insensitive jerk to suggest I expose myself and my words ever again.
It was a terrible moment. I was being asked to open the door just a little bit again, and I reacted with panic and blind fury. You know those doors you have in your heart, that sometimes you slam shut, and then they get stuck that way, and then it starts to feel comfortable and safe for them to be shut forever?
Well, maybe you are lucky and you’ve never done anything so silly. But if you have, you’ll know how brave you have to be to even nudge that door open a quarter of an inch. Such a small sliver of light comes in, not even wide enough to fit a toe in the gap. But you can put your eye up to it and see farther than you have in years….
I did do that, one year ago. Only because during a much calmer conversation in late July, F. assured me that no one would ever read my blog.
Not exactly true, it turns out.
Out of curiosity, I checked this morning, and my words have been read (or at least scanned or glanced at) tens of thousands of times now.
Wow.
And I didn’t once die from the exposure.
On the contrary. This whole experience has been an incredible, radiant joy. I have learned so much, about myself, about writing, about creativity and resilience, patience and persistence, about gardens and magic and storytellers all around the world. I have made friends, laughed and cried with y’all, and been told my words lifted someone’s spirit, brought some small measure of beauty and peace into the world, made things a little brighter, for at least a little while.
And now I have tears in my eyes. I can’t help it. The creative journey is an amazing one.
I’ll probably write more about this journey past my huge creative block as I come to understand it more. But for now, let’s stop all this serious stuff and get back to the happy happy joy joy part.
Aren’t blogaversaries supposed to be about celebration? And presents? Yes! Never fear, I do have presents for you, who have been such an integral and lovely part of my journey.
First and foremost, you have my thanks.
You also have a chance to win free Beauty in your mailbox.
I haven’t said much about it here, but I now sell prints and canvases, postcards and cards of my work over at RedBubble. (See the box in the sidebar.) Yes, it enables me to earn a little money in return for the hours of artmaking I’ve put into this site, and yes, I am so appreciative of those of you who have purchased items from the shop, because our financial situation has not been the easiest row to hoe lately.
But originally, I did it all for the love of paper. I once ran the Paperie at a famous art supply store, and I believe I might have landed the job when the manager asked why I wanted it exactly, and I clasped my hands together like Anne of Green Gables and waxed poetic about how much I adore good paper, and old-fashioned letter writing, and thank-you notes, and fine stationery.
I might also have mentioned how I have a collection of hundreds of postcards and how good-quality, cold-press watercolor paper makes me swoon.
How amazing is it, to be a stationery addict all your life and then to hold your very own designs in your hands? It was a moment of awe for me. I’ll be sending two lucky winners a packet of cards and postcards, hoping you feel at least a touch of that pleasure when you open your mailbox. To enter your name into the random drawing for these gifts, just leave a comment on this post before midnight Eastern Standard Time (that’s the same as NYC, for those of you overseas) on Sunday, August 15th.
If you tweet or otherwise advertise this giveaway, you have my profound gratitude and the joy and satisfaction of serving as a connection point for potential like-minded spirits. But I really want every reader to have an equal chance to win, so those actions will only be to your benefit karmically.
Now, even though I wish I could send you all a lovely gift in the mail, unfortunately that cannot happen, especially since I am relearning the joys of extreme thrift lately.
Blooming in spring, the kind of thrift I actually prefer.
But still, I have managed to come up with a little something for everyone. See that square button in the top of the sidebar labeled Soul Food?
Yes, that’s the one, with the pretty yellow flowers.
If you click it, you’ll find a selection of the best of the best of The Enchanted Earth & Victory Garden Redux (the first incarnation). For each month, I have selected a post where I thought my words were inspired and shining, deep and rich with meaning. I give them all to you again, with a full heart.
Namasté, y’all.
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happy half
Spring is in the air. Quite literally in the air. I spent an entire hour at the South Carolina Botanical Gardens yesterday, enraptured by the buds and new shoots and flowers at my feet, so much so that I never noticed this Japanese apricot bursting into glorious bloom overhead. Only as I was leaving did I perceive a rosy mist among a thousand bare limbs, a hint of a blush hovering in the air above the distant pond.
I rushed over to stand beneath it, the first flowering tree I’ve seen this season, and managed to snap this one shot before my camera battery died on me. I’m so glad I was able to capture that one; it’s nice to immortalize the moment when spring became utterly real for me, even though winter still holds us fast in its grip.
After all, the ground had a frozen crust that crunched beneath my feet when I went to check on the peas’ progress this morning. Yet as I stood beneath these flowering branches, my heart swelled with the joy and the certainty of spring. If I’d been the demonstrative type, I might have started singing. (Visitors to the gardens are no doubt relieved that my relatively timid public persona forbade it — or would be if they knew what a narrow escape they’d had.)
I’m reminded of the opposite moment, immortalized in another post written at the other pole of the year, when autumn made itself felt to me, even in the midst of a blazing August when it seemed as if summer could never end.
When I wrote about the major seasonal shift from summer to autumn, my blog was just a few days old. I feel a bit like a four-year-old announcing this (only very small children count in fractions), but…
It’s my half blog-birthday!
Six months ago at around 9:00 at night, I pressed the publish button on this blog for the first time. And not a single person read that post for 14 days. But I wasn’t really anticipating an audience, or even aware of how one would go about getting one, and it was better for me not to have one at first.
I was treating the blog as a semi-public diary of my kitchen garden, mostly for my use and to get me past my irrational and near lifelong fear of having others read what I write. Those first entries were basically a transfer of a couple of paragraphs that normally would have been preserved in one of my gazillions of notebooks, never to be seen by other eyes.
Now, this whole approach to blogging may sound strange to other bloggers, but you have to remember I knew almost nothing about the world of blogs. And unlike F. and other academically-minded people, I didn’t bother to research before I launched mine. My style is more jump-in-with-both-feet.
So I did.
My personal goal, enumerated on my other blog (which has its half-birthday in two days), was to publish some bit of writing and a photograph here every single day. And I have done so, by and large, only missing seven days’ postings in six months, by my count, and some of those were due to our DSL going on the fritz.
I also used a “cheat,” posting a quote from someone else and a photograph of my own on occasion, especially useful during those times when I was sick, on deadline for work, or away on my honeymoon. Although I learned over time to prepare posts in advance for emergencies, it was particularly difficult to write them too far in advance due to the seasonal nature of this blog.
Since that first post, I have pressed “publish” a total of 299 times (if you count both blogs), and my words have been read — or scanned, or at the very least glanced at — over 12,000 times. And I didn’t die, after all. Pressing the publish button is no longer nerve-wracking, and it seems that by practicing a little writing every day, I’ve somehow cured my writer’s block and am writing more freely than I’d managed in a decade.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “You must do the thing you cannot do.” It seems that in my case, it’s true.
It turns out that letting people read my words is not something to inspire terror; it’s more like a thrill. In fact, my audience turned out to be not scary at all, but rather intelligent and passionate, friendly and knowledgeable, lively and humorous and fun, as can be seen in the more than 1800 comments we’ve exchanged here and at my art blog, and in all of those lovely e-mails, too.
There is no way to adequately express my thanks for all of that interaction, whether it be just reading along or subscribing or commenting or sending me a note. Y’all have been such an integral part of my journey in blogging.
As this anniversary was approaching, I thought a lot about what it has meant to me to have that audience there, and I determined to have some sort of show of my thankfulness. And in keeping with the theme of Victory Garden Redux (how funny is it that I didn’t realize I had a theme when I began?), I’d like to give away some of that most potent symbol of Nature’s mystery and the wonder we all experience when we allow ourselves to truly interact with that mystery; that is, I’ll be giving away some seeds. And because it’s the Victory Garden, they’ll be seeds for food plants.
On February 18th, I will select , by random number generator, three readers to receive a gift of a selection of five varieties of either lettuce, radish, or cucumber seed. These will not be full packets, but a small quantity of seeds of each kind that I have in my seed collection, all suitable for a home kitchen garden.
To enter, just leave a note in the comments and tell me whether you’d prefer lettuce, radishes, or cucumbers in your garden. For those who garden in containers, don’t forget that lettuce and radishes are both suitable, and lettuce in particular is forgiving of relatively cramped conditions. Some cukes are fine in containers, but I have found them a pain because of their need for pretty consistent moisture levels to produce well.
I’m sure that it will not be legal for me to send seed to certain countries, so if a comment from an international reader is selected, I’ll research the rules pertaining to that particular locale, and if exchanging vegetable seeds with you would be illegal or questionable, I’ll find something else garden-related to send instead.
The tradition in F.’s country is that the person whose birthday it is should treat all his or her friends to a wonderful dinner, and sometimes gifts, as well. Of course, in the United States it’s the opposite, with the birthday girl or boy receiving the presents from friends and family. But I like it his culture’s way, really. It’s almost like saying, “Look at me, I’ve survived another year with your love and company and support, and I’m thriving, in large part thanks to all of you. So let’s celebrate together!”
I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than by planting some seeds (for me, today, ‘Saxa’ radish and ‘Tatsoi’ mustard), and I’m so happy to share this half-blogaversary with all of you.
(Post originally published on Victory Garden Redux, my original blog.)