The Trouble With Blogging

Poem: "The Silver Swan" by Anonymous. Public Domain.

The Silver Swan

The silver swan, who living had no note,
When death approached unlocked her silent throat,
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more:
Farewell all joys, O death come close mine eyes,
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.


Yesterday I finally posted some thoughts after avoiding this blog for several weeks. My friend Donna had encouraged me to set up this blog; other friends rallied with support saying, "If anyone should have a wider audience for her writing it should be you." I've taught writing for almost 10 years now. I know the value of journaling, and I used to be quite disciplined, every morning reading, writing, producing at least one poem a week. Lately I have a litany of excuses not to maintain that discipline: work, too tired, depressed, work, somebody already said it better, gotta make money and I don't make money writing, don't have time to edit, this writing is not worthy of publication (even in a blog setting where thousands, perhaps millions of people spew their inner, under-edited thoughts into the atmosphere, work (which is not teaching writing anymore), haven't seen this episode of CSI, too tired, depressed...is it a litany if the list is redundant? Mostly, though, my resistance is that I don't want to sound like a fool to a wider audience. Like the silver swan, like Emily Dickinson, I really only want to be heard upon death. I don't want to be revealed for the fallible human being that I am. I remember a friend of mine telling me she used to think her father was brilliant because he never said anything to counter that. Problem is, he never said anything at all, so she could not know the truth of his brilliance until old age let his tongue slip and she realized how dull and disappointing he was in comparison to her perception of him.

Yesterday I ended my blog with a question...is that what God meant by Easter? Well this morning, in my slow wake, when I'm thinking about what I could blog, but probably won't, I'm already editing yesterday's blurt of emotion and innocent questions with my overthinking, obsessive mind. God didn't mean anything by Easter, God didn't design Easter. God flipped the switch that threw into action the cycle of birth and death and rebirth and death...the cycle of nature. Human beings fabricated Easter to find an explanation for this cruel and unfair reality that people die, an appeasement toward our mortality.

I am mortal, the mazy musings of my mind are feeble in the wake of the oceanic scheme of things. But if the twins can live for only two weeks with barely enough gray matter to keep their vital organs functioning, and yet are equistitely, radically, unconditionally loved through their short, seemingly unproductive lives... Well then, the least I can do is use what gray matter I have to blurt out my understanding that yes, Eleanor and Quinn's life and death and love generated through their fragile sleeping selves, Jesus' life and death and love, my life and death and resurrection every day, the Justification by Grace, by mercy, by unconditional love is God's point...IS what Easter means. The point is not to wait until death to unlock my throat for a Swan Song, but to release my love song, all my notes, into the breathing atmosphere of the living, into now because I am mortal, I am fallible, and I am loved and valued for who I am. Is that your point, God?

I will continue to spell check and read over my blogs because I care about what I put out there, but I won't let that care (or pride) keep me so silent.