Writing

Communication has changed so much in recent times. When I was in high school, I had "pen pals." These were kids in my age-range, in other parts of the world. We would never meet, and never even seriously plan to meet. I wrote to two boys in Japan, one in France, and a girl in what is now disputed territory where India meets Pakistan. Letters took weeks, and the language barrier offered much amusement.

Nowadays, it's all instant messages.

Back in the dark ages (before computers), we kept diaries. Well, some of us did. They usually make pretty boring reading, when found in a shoebox in the attic 30 years later. You see, nothing kept out a dedicated Mom. That was a given. So the only safe solution was to not put anything in the diary that you wouldn't care to discuss with her. Some tried to hide their diaries. Disguise them as a regular notebook, and hide them like "The Purloin'd Letter," in plain sight. If you really wanted to use the one with the tiny lock that Aunt Jessie, or François gave you for Christmas, you had to hide it. A lock box buried in the garden was a possibility. Mothers, in those far off days of yore, didn't worry about violating your privacy. They worried about keeping you out of trouble.

Nowadays, it's a blog.

Sometimes, it seems as if everyone with internet access has a blog. There are dozens of sites like this one, where you can send your thoughts and dreams out into cyberspace.

I have several boxes around the house, full of disorganized scraps of paper on which I have attempted to wax witty and profound. There are poems, essays, Bible stories turned into news broadcasts, ghost stories, and lyrics for country songs. I keep them so that my kids can someday say, "Can you believe all this stuff?" right before they dump it in the recycling bin.

Because now I have a blog. I write it down and 20 or 30 people read it, every day.

I could never have done this while my mother was alive!