Never Lonely When You Have a Blog

Brightly Colored Burdens/ Brian Kershisnik

This blog follows me around. I've only been with it once and already it is bumping into my mind time, reminding me it has needs, making suggestions and nudging me a bit, altering my direction. "You could do this instead of that, it would be good for a blog."
"You should take a photo [I never take a photo unless at the Grand Canyon or the Tower of London a non-English-speaking tourist with a pathetic smile and frantically bobbing head hands me a camera and I simply can't get someone else to do it. Nor have I ever before used brackets. I never got that far in math.] should take a photo and write about this. It would be great for the blog."
"You should take note of this childhood story you happened to remember. Maybe you could connect it to your day today. Maybe there is a passable essay in it. It would be great for the blog."
How did I become so suddenly connected to something with needs and demands? Another being that must be fed? How did I join the world of the blogging? I never join anything. God intended I be a member of His church and had me born into it because He knew there was no way in this world I would ever join. I don't make commitments, I don't even make friends. Ask anybody. I am a lousy committer. I got married this one time, but other than that, all my commitments God gave me. If I try to make a friend, I try and it is this awkward thing. I would simply walk away from this bossy blog except that people have read it. Read it and told me that they did. Read it, told me and asked how often I am going to post. Read, told, asked and suggested a posting schedule. Nudge, nudge.
Here is what I have been thinking about today. Looming blogs shape your thinking.
I read a book called My Grandfather's Blessings. I read it with a book group but really, we didn't have a discussion, more of an homage. Two of the women in the group had already read it and loved it too much for anyone to talk about it, in case they might take some sort of issue with it. So we only got to tell our favorite parts and I never got to say what it made me think about, so I want to say it here.
The author, who works with terminally ill cancer patients, talked about how the dying are often so free, that they really learn to see themselves and what they want from life when they realize they could die. I thought about what I would free myself from if I were dying. Phone calls. I hate making phone calls. I would quit making phone calls. And I did feel as if a great weight rolled from me at the thought. I would start living now. I would be happy now and for the rest of whatever life I have left. No unwanted phone calls. I would not wait till someone told me I had only a short time to live before walking myself away from the phone. I would be as brave as I thought the author of the book was suggesting I be. I would go in the direction my soul was nudging me. No more guilt and avoidance and prevarication. No more manipulation to get Bri to do it. Just no more.
And so how was I going to do this?
How was I going to do this and live?
If I were dying I could say to the bishop that I wasn't going to be the kind of Relief Society secretary who made phone calls because I hate it and if I were dying he would say it was ok. In fact, he would say it was ok and ask me what I wanted to do instead and then probably let me do it. Because I would be dying. What I want is to live but to live like the dying. No more phone calls or okra or old carpet or politness to nasty relatives or whatever. But I can't simply stop making phone calls or eating vegetables or being polite. I have to live with these people. I can't buy new carpet just because we really need it and my life would be so much brighter if the yucky old stuff were gone. That's not the way we live. Someone has got to make phone calls and that person has got to be me.
Just how do you do that?
Just who is going to make the phone calls?
How can I say that it makes my life terrible and I want to stop?
How do I join the living at my time of life?