Picture: closeup photo of a blue lobelia blossom.
I just planted these little blue flowers in a border in a flower box on my back porch. Every time I look at them they make me smile. :)
On another note: I’m sorry that my blogging has been so sparse lately. I’ve been knee deep in some other projects–including my guestblogging stint at FMH and my regular postings for X2 and SSB. As of late I’ve also had an extra amount of busy-ness in my role on the Garden Council and on the Sunstone Board. In addition, I have a social life again (yay) and I’ve been super-eager to spend time with family, friends and garden.
Having said that, let me also affirm how much I enjoy reading your blogs. You people are so smart and cool. When I grow up I want to be like you.
I’ve also been reading a lot this week. My fav book that I’ve finished is 84,Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. It’s a book that you can start and finish in an hour and is a doubly-good read if you are sitting on your back porch curled up in an easy chair sipping on a cup of tea as you read. Helene’s correspondence with the staff of a London bookshop in the post-WW2 era is quite heartwarming. In many ways it reminded me of the relationships that I’ve formed via blogging–I don’t ‘know’ most of you except through our little conversations. Yet this way of ‘knowing’ may have significance that runs deeper than the superficiality of many of my in-person relationships.
Back before the days of email, I used to write lot of letters. It was not uncommon for me to crank out 5-10 letters each Sunday afternoon. Now I rarely ever pull out my box of stationary. But I still have the satisfaction of writing to each of you nearly every day. :)
4 comments
“You people are so smart and cool. When I grow up I want to be like you.”
Me too.
And thanks for they cyber-flowers.
i hadn’t thought about 84, Charing Cross Road for a long time, but i enjoyed it too. i like the correlation to blogging relationships . . .
I love the immediacy and convenience of email, but (as I was talking with Catgirl about last week), it doesn’t hold a candle to the startled joy of receiving a personal letter in the mail, ripping open the envelope, matching the stationary to the personality or relationship, maybe even getting whiff of perfume or cologne, and reading what someone else has written in their own hand, or what they’ve drawn or dawdled in the margins. It’s such a tangible experience … so rich with physical sensation.
Makes me nostalgic for my college days, when my friends and I sent letters like white, winged messengers, from all around the country.
When I’m travelling, I like to send postcards to carry a little flavor of foreign places to my friends.
Will historians in future years bemoan the loss of the handwritten word, or will the idea of penmanship have disappeared in a world where everything is typed onto a keyboard?
There’s definitely loss in the transition, but much gain as well. Jana can attest that I’m a much more consistent correspondent by email and blog than by letter (a testimony to my love for Jana is that she is the only person to have a regular correspondence with me by post–not even my parents have that honor).
With the advent of the printing press, we lost so much of the craft and art that went into the illuminated manuscripts, but look at what we have in its place.