It's My Bloggiversary!

Well fancy that!  I’m one blog year old today.  A milestone.

     I remember last year starting this blog just hoping that I would just be able to post regularly.  Now 207 entries, 128 photos and 3 videos later, I think I’ve met that goal.  I also remember reading an entry in Kat’s blog, DatingGod, where she spoke of her blogger friends and how much they meant to her.  How real they were even though she had never met them---and how they had found ways to contribute to her life that was profoundly meaningful.  I found that very inspiring and something I kind of yearned to be a part of, but I didn’t vest myself much in the thought that this was attainable for me.  I didn’t have the time to devote to courting and publicizing and building traffic to my site.  I wasn’t even sure about how much time I’d have to write.

But it did happen, much to my delight and constant joy ever since (and how cool that Kat is even part of my circle!).  I enjoy my online relationship with all of you, my wonderful blog friends.  This has been such a genuine enhancement to my life and I treasure it.  Some of my interactions have been brief, and some are ongoing.  All have been truly exhilarating.

It’s equally cool to have my real life friends and family reading too.  I’ve been able to be in more regular contact with distant friends and even my own brother.  It really is flattering to have even real life people reading.  It may seem natural that it would be easier to persuade folks I know in real life to stop by, but it amazes me the number of people I mention this site to again and again who never stop by.  And I’m not just assuming they don’t because the don’t leave comments or something.  I’ll ask them, “have you gotten a chance to stop by my blog”.  No—sorry.  Haven’t had a chance.  And many of them are people I know spend tons of time online.  I guess it’s just not their thing.  So even to my real life friends---thank you.

And not the least, my mom is one of my regular readers. She tells me how she finds interesting little insights into my thoughts that she’d probably never know otherwise.  She reads right before she goes to bend and she’s told me that between my brother’s blog and mine, she’s told me she either goes to bed after a good laugh or a good cry. 

So thank you all----I wish I could email you all a piece of cake or something.

Ok then---so now what?

Well, in the mode of taking it one step at a time, I’m hoping for another great year.  Since this past year has taken me so much further than I anticipated, the unidentified possibilities for the next really excite me.  And to me, that’s the best part.  I hope to continue my contact with people I’m regular with, and I wouldn’t be opposed to expanding the circle if that opportunity presents itself. 

Perhaps a better site design?  A leap off this template and onto something more personal?  Perhaps my own domain even?  Who knows.

The big thing for me is to keep adding content.  I write as much for the future as I do for the interactive benefits I get right now.  I write first for the short future knowing how much pleasure I get out of looking back at photos and videos even after 2 or 3 years and treasuring all the subtleties that would have otherwise been lost.  I enjoy the focus of the pictures or videos (usually my family), but also the little things like hair and clothes, TV. or music playing in the background, cars, or changes in a room or yard. All of these mundane things become so interesting the more time moves on.

            I also write for the further future, with my grandkids and further down the family tree in mind.  So much history and experience just evaporates when family members pass.  I’m hoping to stem the flow a little by what I add here.  I know how much the few pages my grandmother was able to write down about her life and the small booklet my uncle created about his WWII service mean to the people around them, I can only imagine how invaluable a regular journal over years could be to my progeny.

            But it goes even beyond that.  I’m not sure how many people are aware, but there is an effort working right now call the Internet Archive Project.  This is a group who is taking snapshots at regular intervals of the entire internet.  They sweep all the public material available on the internet at that moment and store it.  They archive the entire internet for posterity as a potential historical and archeological artifact.  So if you’ve ever commented on a message board, put up your own site, or made a comment on a blog----it’s in there.  And that is very compelling to me.  I kind of indulge in a fantasy that someday my words may be part of a Ken Burnsian holodeck documentary for some kind of Star Trek future grade school’s virtual field trip.  Who knows what may come of things, but I like being able to feel that I’m contributing to the documenting the human experience in some small fashion.  And so is all you who blog too.  Like we’re all working on this giant effort together as a gift to the future

At any rate, tomorrow begins my blog new year.  I’m so glad you’ll be a part of it.  Heck, I’m glad I’ll be a part of it.

And so, onward!