5 posts tagged “blogging”

It was just about seven months ago when my dear friend Jen suggested I start a blog.  She got me set up here on Vox and I never looked back.  Seventy two posts later, I am still here and loving every minute of it.  Writing this blog has been one of the most healing and affirming experiences ever.   

But now, well, I think I've outgrown this little spot over here at vox.  Its hard to leave comments if you are not a vox member.  Its impossible to get stats.  It's very hard to really personalize the site and frankly I am sick of the ads.  I am ready to move on and have a REAL blog, a community and a site that makes sense for both me and my readers.

Thanks to the butt kicking of the lovely Jenni Ballantyne and some encouragement from Jen Lemen I went out and purchased my very own url.  It sat around getting dusty for awhile while I tried to figure out how to load wordpress and make it nice and pretty.   I had such hopes for it to look beautiful and perfect, to be full of art I had yet to create.  For about a month I was paralyzed by my own perfectionism and visions of art.  I didn't know how I would get  started let alone how I would make it how I wanted it to be so I just avoided it.

But these days I am working on letting go of perfectionism and in holding it all so much lighter.  So I decided to go ahead and launch it even though it wasn't quite perfect.  Afterall, my blog is a perpetual work in progress just like me.

I finally finished getting it look acceptable, if not completely finished.  I have loaded my old posts up on there and after this post will start to blog over there now.  Head over to it here to check it out.  If you want to know the url and maybe even set up an RSS feed its www.megcasey.com.  Not clever I know, but hey, it will be easy to find me...

I am still struggling to come up with a good tagline and invite you all to comment (over here or over there) to help me out.  Bamboo Journal was a name I chose in a fit of desperation.  Really I picked it because I love bamboo and I couldn't think of anything better.  Frankly I am not wild about it.  When I purchased the url www.megcasey.com I did so also in a similar fit.  I picked it because it was available and frankly I couldn't figure out a more clever name for my blog.   But I need some help from you all who read this blog, who may be more clever and witty than I, to come up with something that will help capture the essence of my little writing home..

Lastly, I am sad to say, that while I was able to figure out how to upload all my old Bamboo Journal posts, I haven't really figured out how to get your soulful and wonderful comments up there as well.  Right now it feels a little naked and lonely without you there.  So please feel free to come by and leave a comment.  If you are a regular reader who has never commented over here because of the difficulty of commenting on vox, please delurk and drop me a line over at the new place to let me know you are here.  I would love to hear from you.  And it will make the new place so much more cozy.

Hope to see you over at the new place.

xo and blessings,

Meg

Last week, I discovered this groovy little post over at Cool People I Know.  I came to it by way of a challenge by the lovely Jen Lemen, urging us all to make a life list--to commit to paper 100 hearts desires you want to make come true.

Given that I had recently gone about rituals to shed myself of things I didn't want (fear especially) I thought it would be a wonderful positive exercise to remind my heart of all I did want.  I set about creating my list here.  It took me a week.

In between loads of laundry, or heating up dinner I would steal away for 5 minutes to write down something else that had occurred to me during the day. 

When I first started out, I had no idea how on earth I would get to 100.  It was all I could do to admit that I really wanted the first 20 items.   Its so easy to get into a mode of self-denial--of telling myself I can't have it, so don't ask for it--don't dare to even wish.  It dawned on me how incredibly limiting and well...crippling that can be.  Afterall, the first step to making our wildest and deepest darkest dreams come true is admitting that they are there.

But the assignment was to get to 100.  Stephanie and all the other cool people on this wiki were giving me permission, to go wild.  I threw off the self-repression and shone a light into the dark corners of my soul where old wishes lay dormant.  Pretty soon, I was cranking on my list.  I had turned on a spiggot and the ideas came flooding out.  Small aspirations and big wild messy dreams.  I had to really think and prioritize.  My top 100 dreams.  Just the most important.

I have my list now and am making a point of looking at it every day.  I ask myself how the actions I took today take me a tiny bit closer to crossing just one of those things off my list.  Its a little map for myself--a compass to keep me pointed in my hearts true direction.  I know that each dream crossed off will open the door for another to take its place and that is a beautiful thing.

In order to see my list you are going to need to create your own.  Do it--I double dog dare ya...

It feels like ages ago that I started this little blog.  Hard to believe its only been months.  Time plays funny tricks on me these days, reminding me that it really is all relative. 

When I started this blog, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it.  It was a place for me to write, to experiment, to be newsy and practice being brave.  I expected that I would write stories about our life here in Maryland and that maybe through those stories I would reveal something about the journey that Max and I are on, a journey of loss and recovery, of independence and reinvention and grief and grace and that maybe someone would like them.    I expected that some of these stories would be deeply personal and that I would need to make decisions about what to share to protect my own heart.

But an interesting thing is happening here in our world.  When I started writing Max and I were on the tail end of what had been on a long dark hike through the loss of Juan.  It was a lonely journey.  Writing was a way to help me connect with my thoughts, beliefs and experiences as we walked into the sunrise of our new life.  We are still on the journey of course, but it has changed.  While it is true I am still struggling with issues around single parenthood, helping Max cope with not having a full-time dad, and the never ending juggling act of trying to do it all, these relatively lonely struggles are no longer at the center.

Day by day, my band of fellow travelers is growing.  I have realized that my struggles are not any different really that so many others.  I am lucky to have connected with some really interesting and cool people who are themselves reaching out, struggling, journeying--living really, just living, life to its fullest.  Some are the people who have been walking with me silently through the long dark icky time when my marriage was going going gone.  Others are new to us.  Some have become a regular part of our everyday life while others are just passing through for a short time.  But I am struck by how much in the last few months I feel connected to community, to a great body of others all trying to make it, not always succeeding, but willing to stand up and try (just try) to be brave in big and small ways.  Each one of them is a teacher, a guru, and a partner (whether they intend to be or not).

I am awed by how much of what I am learning is coming from this interaction with my community.  And so therefor I find it difficult to talk about my life without simultaneouosly talking about the lives of others.   And so I find myself here struggling wanting so desperately to whisper stories to you that illustrate or punctuate what we are going through here in Maryland  and yet desperate to protect the privacy of my loved ones who are my partners on this path.  And as I sit to write I find myself dancing around the point a bit.

Some of the boundaries are clear--I would never share anyone's personal story without getting their permission.  I wouldn't share something I had written just for them without asking their OK.  But then once we move past black and white it starts to get murky...  Do I need to get permission to mention their first name in passing?  To post a photo?  To share something beautiful or lovely they did or said?  And how do I go about doing that in a way that doesn't seem self important?  Suddenly the public-ness of posting on a blog becomes real to me--very real and apparent and scary and stark.  I am embarrased and ashamed to ask them if I can share what I am learning from our friendship together here in this very public forum.  Not because I don't think they will be giving or because I fear their judgement for asking but because the very act of asking permission means I need to claim the space of being "a writer"--something that seems scary to me.  And it means admitting that I have a blog or that I think the blog is important or that someone might just be reading it.  It means owning the fact that I am putting my writing out into the world--that I think it is good enough to put out into the world.  And then I ask myself--Do I really?  And this is a heavy thing indeed.    I have put my writing out there not really sure if anyone is even reading it but now...now I need to assume they are.  And this freaks me out as much as it thrills me.

And as I write here I am struck just how scared I am to claim this title so that I can keep going here, how I can keep going with the stories no longer of me--but of us.

everyone I know read this post by Jen Lemen, picked something on it and did it by Saturday next.  I think the world would shift in small but amazing ways...I double dog dare ya...

Max stood at the door to the classroom trembling.  It was early drop off, a ritual he normally tolerated reasonably well, but this time, it was different.  His early morning friends weren't there, the teacher who normally welcomes him was out for the day.  And worse still, the only other person in the classroom was a boy who he didn't know very well.  "He's mean," he whispered as the other boy, who clearly wasn't a morning person, glared at us.  "Mama, I'm scared."  From the shaking of his little 5 year old body, I knew this wasn't just "end of the weekend" drama.  This was real.

I wanted to scoop him up in my arms, safe and sound, and run home to put on pajamas and read books under a blanket fort.  I wanted to rock him and sing to him.  But try as I might, I couldn't quite figure out how to explain to my boss that I missed the sacred Monday morning meeting because we were terrorized by a stony faced preschooler.  I knew this was going to have to be a moment where we worked on facing fears.  "Max", I said, "You are going to have to go in there.  I know it is scary, but you are very brave."  "Mommy" he barely whispered, choking back the tears, "I can't.  I am not brave.  I am really really really scared."  I was desperate.  My boss is not a tolerant guy.  I asked the universe for help.

And then I surprised myself.  I got down eye to eye with him.  "Maxidoodle.  Do you know what it means to be brave?  Bravery is not about being fearless.  Being brave means you are really really scared and you try anyway.  You are my brave knight.  Sure you might be scared but you are going to go in there and try to play with that boy or maybe you will just play by yourself but you are going to have a great day."  His grip on my hand loosened just a bit.  "Come on," I said.  "I will go in with you."  And together we walked through that door to face the day's latest fears.  I had tears in my eyes as I left him there, not knowing what the next hour had in store for him.  Would he make friends with the new mean kid?  Would he be miserable?  The only thing I knew as I saw him wave good bye was that at that moment he defined bravery for me. 

A few weeks ago, my friend Jen, a soulful writer and illustrator of beautiful pictures opened a new door for me.  We were standing on the playground talking.  "You should blog," she said.  "I think you would like it." 

"Hmm...really."  I said outloud. 

Inside I said, "You have got to be  crazy.  I am not a writer.  I can't do that--I mean sure I would like to do something like that but really, come on--can't you see...I am really really scared.". 

At that exact moment I saw the bravest little boy I know flip off the monkey bars, fall on his rear and get up.  "Yikes," he yelled to me.  "That was scary!"  But he was laughing, his eyes dancing with the excitement of flying.  I remembered our little chat about courage.

"Sign me up" I said, my own grip loosening. 

I am walking through this door.  Hello blog-land.  Here I am.