In which I talk about blogs.

I've been taking some time away from this little blog to venture out into the world of blogging. I just wanted to see what was out there, and wow, I was quite taken away with what I found: hundreds of hard-working, stylish blogging queens. Witty moms. Stylish moms. Crafty moms. Smart moms. Bragging moms. Political moms. Moms with good ideas and loud voices. Obviously there are a myriad of incredible blogs written by women who are not "mom-bloggers". I read a lot of those as well, written by friends and strangers alike, they in equal proportion, are moving and inspirational. I just focused for a moment on mom blogs because I seem to notice them lately, considering my new station in life. I have been looking to them to try and figure out how to balance everything. A great many voices are speaking. A whole lot of women blogging about a whole lot of different things. There are days when I want to move completely away from the blogging scene, and there are actually days when I do just that, but I inevitably come back to it. I think just right now, in writing this, I am realizing why I, and so many other women I know, really love the blog-sphere. I think it is because for the first time in perhaps ever, women have a space and forum for loud and powerful voices that are influential across the globe. That was a pretty epic sentence I just wrote. But I mean it. I think women have always had powerful, intelligent, influential thoughts and ideas, but it seems that many times in history, we've been crowded out, either because we were in a male-dominated scene, or because we were too busy with the work of the home to go out in places where it is easy to be heard. It seems, and I could be wrong, but in the past, we had to choose to be in the home with kids at the sacrifice of losing a bit of our voice in the world (at least in some senses), or we had to sacrifice our time at home to go out and try and make ourselves heard. It seems that blogging is a marrying of the two. In taking this time away to read other blogs, I have been impressed at how many women respond with genuine concern to the needs of another woman she may have only met in writing. I think about how many mothers and fathers have their pertussis vaccination because of my cousin Natalie's blog. I think about the ideas and thoughts of women in others states and other countries than me. I've signed petitions for important causes because I felt akin to another woman blogger. I definitely think there is a point at which we should close the laptop, or walk away from the computer desk and go and live our lives, and more often than not, that point should probably happen sooner, but I do also believe that there is a power in the nexus of voices and thoughts invisibly woven through many homes, where women are working hard and effecting change in the world.

I suddenly feel like I'm getting ahead of myself, or once again, getting a little to epic and melodramatic for my own good, but point is, I think blogging is a powerful tool and I'm glad for the things I've been reading over the past weeks. Granted, there are some blogs that just make me feel totally unfashionable (you mean the cut-off leggings and deep-v, cleavaging, nursing shirt I've been wearing everyday aren't at the top of the hip scale?), un-crafty and boring, but hey, maybe that's the truth, or maybe I can just choose to scroll through those posts quicker on my google reader. I'm just about done, but I'm just sayin', there's a lot of good that can come from these blogs I think. There are a lot of good women with mighty-fine voices who know how to talk about just about anything. I'm pretty sure that I started out this post to be about something else...oh yeah. My thesis! I defended my thesis (which consisted of 40 poems, 40 paintings and a big theory paper). It was a fabulous and reassuring experience in which I was able to account for a decade of working and learning. Maybe someday, if I ever stop revising, I will show it to you. I must say, I'm having a bit of an identity crisis after being a student for nearly 10 years. Perhaps that explains this post and my newfound faith in blogging.