Reflecting

The question I most often ask myself is why I started this blog. I know the cause. I just don’t know why that poem needed to be shared. I never saw myself as blogger: too private, too much of a perfectionist, too scared about who might read it. But then I was. And not only was I blogging, I was posting poetry—something I’d almost never shared before, with anyone. Poetry, so often the expression of my deep fears and least hopeful thoughts; out on the web, where I can’t guard them or explain them (without naming myself). The truths with which I most often wrestle on display, veiled in suggestion and metaphor, the only way to speak of them, leaving them open to all interpretations.
So I still wonder why. I think I will for a long time.
Reading through what I’ve posted, I am often amazed at the note of hope, the vision of a better world that continues to be there. It’s just not how I would first characterize my work. I’m also amazed at how much I’ve written about writing/language/communication. I think most people who know me would read what I have posted and see ‘me.’ But there are aspects of my life that aren’t here, yet language is recurring theme.
More than anything, I’ve been shocked at how much I’ve been willing to post. I never really thought I’d be able to post something every week, which I pretty much have. There are one or two poems I still wonder about posting, but overall, I’m really happy with what’s up here. Before this I’d rarely revisited my own work, so I think I mostly recalled the situation and emotions that were behind the poems. The chance to go back and read and rethink the poems as they fit into the larger arc of my life has been a wonderful gift to me.
As for what happens next, I don’t know. Which is pretty much true of everything right now. My life holds some fairly significant changes in the next few months, with graduation leading off the list. I may not know why I started this “side project” but I don’t think I’m going away anytime soon. I have found I like it here.