reflections on connection

evening sky near my parents' home

Today I came home after rushing around shopping and getting gas with a bit of a headache and I saw that I had 6 comments on my last post.  For me lately, that's a lot.

It made me smile.

I haven't been blogging as much, I have been busier with my new job responsibilities and honestly using - gasp - facebook for connecting with people - old friends and acquaintances, and people all over the world through a humanitarian organization I am part of.  I know, I know.  Facebook!  

Consequently I haven't had time to visit all of your awesome blogs, and I have felt out of the loop.

What is it that makes blogging touch my heart so much?  To have connections with people all over the world, mostly women, mostly mothers, mostly artistic people who like to communicate.  To read about Nienie's daily life with her four kids, knowing she once had a beautiful young face, and now she is happy to be alive, her body and face covered by scar tissue from severe burns.  To know how much pain she is in everyday, but she still has such a good sense of humor, and deep faith.  To pray for her, even though we have never met, and I don't even leave comments on her blog - you can't.  But to pray that she gets her wish -- to have another child.  This touches my heart, to be let into her life.  And to have this image of all of my European blog gals hanging with their kids, milking their goats, growing their gardens.  This somehow makes me feel connected to the entire world.  And this summer in Los Angeles I got to meet fellow blogger Elizabeth, it was so cool!

I suppose it is similar for many of you.  Having a blog somehow makes me feel complete.

Only a few years ago my kids were little and we were 3000 miles from our families and there weren't blogs.  I was isolated and often very lonely.  I longed for community and dreamed of living close to other families with young children, so we could help one another.  I dreamed of finding an old lady who needed a friend, I would visit her and we would tell each other our life stories, and I would bring her homemade muffins, and she would be like a grandmother to my children.  Gary and I even looked at an intentional community called Ecovillage - in Virginia of all places (funny we were just there). Those midday walks down a long driveway to the mailbox a few years ago after not talking to any adult all morning or leaving the house all day with an infant asleep in the house and a two year old about to wake from her nap could bring tears to my eyes.  Don't get me wrong, I loved being an at home mother, and we had a ton of fun.  But it was still lonely sometimes.  Now I am so busy and it isn't so lonely, because the kids are older, more independent, and my life isn't so much about playgroup and cloth diapers and parks and hanging with other moms and kids.  Now we are a busy, bustly family, and with five of us I am never lonely.  Our mailbox is closer, and often the kids get the mail for me.  My kids are all such interesting people, we have full on conversations, and they are becoming more grown up every day.

Everything changes.

But the blog world is my new world pod of people I find I have things in common with - after all I am a mom, a writer, an artist, a photographer, a blabber...

Maybe I am making up for all of those years of loneliness.  I never found the old lady friend...Maybe I didn't look hard enough.  And I am glad for all of the young moms who now use blogging as a means of support and connection. 

Just today I was walking on the beach with my husband, telling him about how I felt that facebook has kind of replaced blogging for me, I am posting photos, writing things, getting comments.  Similar, but not the same.  It's far less personal.  And on purpose.  Facebook is for marketing Gary's music.  (So if you are on facebook, and interested in checking out Gary's music page, let me know...)

But blogging is for me, my creative outlet, my connection, my new friendships. I told Gary today that I felt bad that I had lost touch with so many great blogging friends.

So although I have been quasi lame and a bit out of touch, I wanted you all to know how much it meant to me, to come home to 6 comments, like a confirmation from the universe to keep blogging.  When something makes us feel that good, it's something worth paying attention to.

Thank you friends.  I'll be back.