The whole beginning of the letter to my friend Deb is an examination of how odd it is, after the immediacy of email, to write a letter I know she won’t see until sometime next week. I like the roominess of that. I like that there’s space in a letter to explore something that’s bothering you, or interesting you, or compelling you right now but without the expectation that someone is going to respond this afternoon. You’re not writing it to get a response, to get an immediate answer, but rather, trying to get a sense of the contours of the country, and then sending that impression to someone you love for safekeeping.
For me this describes blogging in the age of Facebook and Twitter. A blog post is not a status update; it's an exploration of the contours of one's country, interior or exterior. And though of course a reader can leave a comment on a blog, the true response is a letter written in reply – sent via RSS.
For Jody, who's blogging like it's 2002; and for Bon, who makes me question my motives.
4 comments:
i don't write a lot of letters, per se, but i send a lot of postcards and it greatly pleases me to do so.
My parents send us postcards when they travel. I love them. I save every one.
I love this analogy.
Funny, though, that I seem to be a better blog post writer than I was ever a letter writer. Better in the sense that I actually post things on my blog, whereas few letters I started ever made it into the post. I have a big box full of half-written letters. Mot of them starting with an apology for having taken so long to send a letter. (Now, of course, that is how I open most emails.)
I think the open-endedness of blogging helps me. A post can be the start of something that I will continue with later. With a letter, I had this expectation that I needed to get to a point of completion. I am bad with completion.
Huh. This is getting to be a very long comment. Maybe I should have just posted it on my blog! But I'm supposed to be doing work...
I love the analogy too. I've gotten way out of the habit of posting regularly or even reading regularly, but I still love to do both. I hoard unread posts in my reader, saving them for moments when I have time to both read and try to comment.
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