Old friends and past adventures
Memory is a curious thing. A single thread pulls away at a seam on the edge of your recollection, and before you know it swathes of past adventures are falling onto the table and flooradventures you had long forgotten.
While studiously avoiding getting anything in particular done at lunchtime, I unwittingly fell into the inky abyss of Facebook. A friend posted a photograph of the canal boat she once called home, and made me realise how many years we had known each other. Following an exchange of comments, I dredged into my long term memory helping device (otherwise known as the blogwhich has close to 11 years worth of mundane recollection stored away in a fairly impenetrably uncategorised “heap” filing system). The trick was knowing what to look for.
We had met while taking part in the first running of NaBloPoMo in 2006. I discovered mention of her name the following year, while complaining to anybody that might listen (nobody), that the second year wasn't as good as it used to be.
I started wonderingwhich is always dangerousabout the blogs I used to follow. After a few minutes of amateur sleuthing through my own archival navel gazing, I turned up a succession of names that rang bells. Some of the blogs have long gone, but others lie dormantforgotten relics of a golden age of free writing on the internet (yep, totally wearing the rose tinted spectacles today). While trying to recall who was who, and feeling an odd sense of loss for those who either stopped writing, or are no longer with us, I realised that one person in particularlike myselfhas endured, or persistedwhichever word better describes our stalwart stand against anything and everything.
She lives in Canada, and should be famous by now. She writes about daily life, struggles, thoughts, and the chaos of modern lifeand she writes wonderfully. In recent weeks she visited Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert, and her journal has enthralled me.
Reading the Burning Man journal highlightedin my mind at leastthe total lack of effort I have devoted to writing blog posts in the last couple of years. When digging back through posts of the distant past, I often struggle to recognise that I am the same authoroften laughing at my own humour, or guiltily admiring that actually, yes, I do know how to write, even if I rarely do so any more.
Perhaps it's time I returned to my writing roots, resumed the recording of thoughts and adventures, stopped the insufferable navel gazing, and began the story telling.