Blogs: reading someone’s unfolding story

So.  New look, and finally a chance to sort out some of this blog.  I’m looking back through a lot of what I wrote at the start, later on, and right now.   And I realise that I’m starting to read my own blog as I read that of others: as an unfolding story.

Blogs come in all shapes and sizes.  Personal ones can vary hugely – some people post daily, others just when they have something new to share.  Which can vary a lot.  I know – I stopped writing for three years, and then started up again.

Having done a certain amount of reading of others’ blogs over the autumn, I now have a little list of people whose sites I check regularly.  They’re my equivalent of reading a daily newspaper, or getting regular letters from people I know well.

It seems strange to say – because I’ve never met any of them.  Many of these bloggers are based in the US – I came into a couple of different blogs through recommendations of individual posts from friends.

Those original posts impacted me, in different ways.  Sometimes what they have to say is right for you, that day, that hour even.  What they choose to write about is just right for the season you’re in.

But what keeps you reading them…is how they write.  And, it’s fair to say, also what they write about in general.

So when you find a blog you like, what do you do? Follow it – fine.  Again, some people will keep you well fed if they post regularly – others, it can feel a little like that school friend you like, but don’t know if they like you.  If you’re cool enough.

The days that they’ve written, and you find that post that feels like it’s directed at you – well, it can be a bit like that attention you’ve been wanting.  It can be worth waiting for – if the blog is good.

Re-reading that last little bit, it doesn’t sound so healthy.  But then – think about how you feel about any other writer whose work you like.  Journalists, columnists, writers of ‘thought for the day’.  Include radio presenters who you listen to every day.

What they have to say does something for you.  Or you wouldn’t keep coming back.  And what they have to say can feel a bit like treats, maybe; or little oases in a frustrating day when you just want someone to be nice to you – or get what your day looks like, because theirs might just be like that too.

So.  All well and good.  But if you like what they read, and want to soak it up – like running to the library and borrowing the next book of that author you like – how does it work on blogs? The archive.  The person they were when they started.  The person they’ve gradually become.

I started reading the archives of people’s blogs because I really loved the writing.  And I really wanted to know more about them too  – how they came to be interested in what they do, how they made transitions in life.  (In some cases, to work out how they got that huge readership, that regular number of comments, day in, day out.)

The interesting thing about doing this is that it varies between blogs, according to how they are set up.  Sometimes you go from post to post – you just see titles.  Sometimes you get a month at a time – but you have to read the latest post first.  Sometimes you jump into a month, and each post is shown by an icon, so you can kind of work your way around them.

In the case of one blog, I was able to go back to the very start.  To see how the person’s themes emerged, how their family grew.  Having read a number of their current posts, I was now getting their back story – right down to seeing when their writing took off, when they started getting recognition for what they knew about or were good at.

In the case of another, the blog had changed tack part way through.  It started as a bit of a how to – in their case, wanting to share ideas of teaching materials.  And it morphed into their own sewing business, the arrival of their children, with tasters of their teaching background still in the picture.

For another, I already knew they lived in Mexico but had come from the US – how had they got there?  Hiding inside the posts were hints at where their confident writing style had come from – other writing work, years of thinking and pondering that were now coming to life in statements on the screen.

Reading archives is  the equivalent of buying the box set.  It doesn’t matter where you came into the story – you can go back and make sense of it all.  You can savour it, or you can chomp your way through.  And when you are really enjoying the words, the ideas, and the unfolding story – it is as addictive as any TV show, any series of novels.

People are fascinating.  And blogs are one way of experiencing how varied, how unique people are – as well as how much we all share.

Transitions: reading what we may become

Hello! New look. New functionality. New categories. Gosh. And lots of new to-do lists to make the site work the way I want it. So to take transitions as my theme today seems rather apt.

Transitions. It’s part of a book title, and it’s a way of thinking about books you want alongside you when there are sea changes going on in life.

Some people despise self-help books. Some people lap them up – clearly, they must, or there would be no giant self-help sections in bookshops, airport shops and so on.

I guess the kind of books I am thinking of are not strictly self-help books. They are the equivalent of a good friend who will listen to your rants, your self-accusations, your occasional moments of incoherence at life when you don’t know whether to cry or just to cough.

They are books where you read of others’ struggles, others’ attempts to make sense of changes in their lives. And some way in, you discover that the book is quietly having a conversation with your struggles, drawing them up into consciousness again, before gently smoothing them down in a new configuration.

Transitions, by William Bridges, is a bit of a classic. Clearly a lot of people have found it helpful. Equally, I recommended it to someone one time, and it wasn’t his thing at all.

But it all depends on the kind of companion you want while you rant, or ponder. (And it does help if you’re prepared to use myths and legends as pictures for your own story’s twists and turns, as Bridges offers.)

Where I came into this experience of books was with Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son. I was having a bit of a transitional year, and I chanced across this book which belonged to a flatmate.

Nouwen tells his own story, but leaves plenty of space to make connections with your own. He looks at the figures in the story of the prodigal son: the prodigal (and younger) son, the elder son who stays at home, and the father.

He encourages us to see life as offering a transition through these archetypes, to finally embrace the role of the father, who waits, daily, for the return of the prodigal, yet still puts aside decorum to rush towards him when he finally appears.

The book also tells the parable through the medium of Rembrandt’s painting of the Prodigal Son, the cover for the book. Nouwen’s musings on the separate figures in the painting are insightful, as are his comments on how the artist has drawn out different aspects of them through particular painting techniques.

There is something of being offered another’s story – flexible, expansive, elemental – as a mirror in which to catch glimpses of our own story. By offering several stories at once – autobiography, parable and art criticism – Nouwen offers plenty of space in which to insert our own details, and our own sense of narrative.

The beauty of these kind of books is that they do not prescribe. They can offer means for understanding places where we feel stuck, places where we are changing at one level but nothing is happening at other levels.

Bridges is useful in offering his Neutral Zone, where we are no longer in the ‘old world’ – and not yet entirely in the new one either. And Nouwen shows how easy it is to be stuck in the place of older brother, judging others yet unable to embrace the joy that the father has to offer to us as well.

We may look at these books as places to come up for air, after holding our breath. We may gulp them down at times, or eat our fill and return to savour them on other occasions.

We may even look at them on our bookshelves as markers themselves: “this is where I was. This book reminds me that I am no longer there.”

Sometimes, we want to be reminded of what we are no longer – as well as to look towards what we may become.

Application forms: reading the face of a generation

Long long ago (well, a few years now), the end of January would tick round, and I would start to receive lots of application forms. My notion for this series was learning from books: but why not other written words?

My intention, as I write this, is to honour the people whose forms I read. Sitting and reading the forms, meeting some of the individuals at interview, I felt like a sociologist, taking a snapshot of UK culture through the hopes and ambitions of a generation wanting to go abroad.

One of my former colleagues spoke of interviewing as a privilege. Some of the interviewers who came from other countries did the same. There was also a privilege in ‘meeting’ the applicants on paper – partly because there was so much to learn from those forms.

I found out what were popular names. Some whole names would repeat, year by year (those being probably the more typically Scottish ones). Others seemed to be unique, never seen again over the period of a decade.

I discovered variant spellings, trends for middle names, and usually learned how to pronounce one new (to me) Gaelic-origin name a year.

Every year, there seemed to be a hobby or pastime I’d never heard of before. Or voluntary organisations. I saw a rise in certain activities (snowsports and riskier outdoor activities).

Some of the applicants seemed seasoned travellers at 20, having been to more continents than I could dream of. Others were yet to go abroad. Some were used to living far from family, others were still in their original house.

I learned how much more these applicants had to juggle studies with paid work than I had done as a student. Some experienced challenges, bereavements and were unable to take up the opportunity they sought. Some came back later, and made it second time round.

Some people exuded confidence. Some sought one level of challenge, but showed promise to go a stage further. Some wanted the chance, but were daunted at the prospect of so much change.

There is something magnetic about reading these desires in others’ words. We discover how any of us can use words to frame our dreams, our ambitions, our abilities. How, from a body of words, we experience the sense of a person, walking about, having intentions in their life.

It’s a truism that a text doesn’t stay the same when it’s read – it changes as it’s explored by the reader. It changes between readers. In application forms, we also read the person – and the changing person, the person they aspire to become.

What do any of us aspire to? To discover who we are. To stretch that definition, maybe a little, maybe some more. Perhaps to find tasks for our hands, things that we hope we can do well, where we want the chance to try.

Societies change. Backgrounds, life experiences, life opportunities change. I could read that for myself, year by year. But I also consistently read a desire to help, to make a difference, to embrace an opportunity to change.

While the year is still young, while there are resolutions still to remember, or to rekindle, it feels good to remember what I learned from those forms. To find ways to discover where I am myself, where I might be going. To celebrate achievements, even where they are familiar to many, as well as those that are special to me.

And perhaps, as I write, even if it is not an application form, I can look later and read: myself now, and the self I am becoming. Sometimes all we need is the chance to chart our course through life – and perhaps an audience to look on, and witness both selves.

Lord Peter Wimsey: wearing your knowledge lightly

Did you ever have one of those books of quotations? Ones where you look up a quotation for the moment on whatever topic seems important. We had one. One of my grannies passed hers on to me. But probably my favourite source is Lord Peter Wimsey, gentleman detective.

Wimsey was the creation of Dorothy L. Sayers. You might have seen the series quite some years ago, with Edward Petherbridge and Harriet Walters – that’s where I came in. Detective falls in love with author who is on trial for murder – that starts the stories with the two of them, but there’s more stories too with just Wimsey.

Wimsey is a gentleman, with a gentleman’s private income (so he can do some detecting if he pleases), but also a gentleman’s education. And part of that education is a whole collection of quotations for the moment: Biblical, Shakespearean, and other literary sayings.

Dorothy L. Sayers herself was a classicist, as well as being a copywriter, a Christian writer, and a translator of Dante. So she had a lot of sources to choose from, and these she poured into Wimsey.

The name, as I understand it, is a deliberate play on whimsy, a suggestion of fanciful behaviour. Wimsey doesn’t need to work – but he does, with all of his intellect put to work.

The quotations tend to come out when he is in high spirits, or pensive – or suffering with the impact of what happens to the criminals he tracks down (the books were written at a time when capital punishment was still legal in the UK).

I too took up quotations, for a time. Back in the days of diary writing, I would put a new quotation at the top of each entry, usually taken from what I was reading at the time. I think the notion was to learn some of them by heart, though that didn’t really happen.

But some of them, I must have done. Some of the quotes that come to mind most come from what Wimsey says – and they make their way into my thinking at times. (Some of that is also through a certain amount of re-reading Sayers at times.)

When I wrote a post a couple of months ago, about ‘coming home’ to writing, it is borrowing Wimsey’s words on what he feels when (finally) he and Harriet Vane agree that they might feel free to love each other.

I don’t always wear my knowledge lightly. I like learning, and I like passing on that knowledge. Which makes me a teacher on one hand (ex-teacher, at least), and a swot on the other. It’s a balance I am still trying to find as I write.

But in Wimsey, I see some possibilities for how that balance may work – and how, at times, finding the right words for the occasion can be a gift. A celebration. A solace. All those things that we seek from words, and sometimes find.

And in a quotation, sometimes the discovery is how the right words really are right – not once, but many times. With all that changes in life, having the right words can be something to cling on to – and something to cheer about.

Alice meets Kafka: worlds turned upside down

There have been a few ups and downs here recently, mainly in the mummy plays nurse department. In the space of less than a week, two separate days off school, and a trip to A&E. My basis for operating is feeling a little shaky. I need a point of reference when life is turned upside down.

But whatever has been going on this last week, I have not had to deal with shrinking or growing. Being attacked by a pack of cards. Suddenly discovering I am turning into a large insect. Those kind of upside downs. Thankfully not.

One of my English teachers at school was allowed one book to take with him when he did military service (or so he told the class). For whatever reason, he packed Alice in Wonderland. Something of the confusing world of Wonderland, with many things unexplained, seemed to offer perspective for that period of his life.

I reread Alice within the last year and realised its strangeness once more. In some ways, it is more a series of scenes sewn together – some do seem to build, some less so. I am still unsure about the purpose of Little Bill, mentioned when Alice is too big and stuck inside the house.

At school, we went a stage further – The Annotated Alice was on the A Level booklist. I found the process partly interesting, partly a little sad – it is nicer sometimes to believe in nonsense for nonsense’ sake, rather than discover its roots in situations belonging to Lewis Carroll’s everyday world.

In the annotated version, things are allowed to make some sense. We come to see that the brilliant Jabberwocky poem (in the sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass) has its basis in a spoof version of Anglo-Saxon.

But for Alice, making her way through Wonderland, the world does not make sense – and few of the characters offer explanations.

At another extreme are Kafka’s short stories, which I came to read at university. The sense of having your balance shifted for you is strong. Characters begin as one thing and swiftly become something very different, particularly Gregor who wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant ‘unclean’ insect.

In Kafka’s worlds, there are no explanations. The shifts, the changes, are not just unexpected – they are beyond believable, to the ‘normal’ world, but they acquire a kind of internal logic as they develop. You can see where they are going at times, as the reader, but are powerless to stop them – with that same note of anguish that you find in Greek tragedies.

There are other stories out there which deal more directly with ‘why me? why this? why now?’. The book of Job is one that people turn to when trying to make sense of confusion and upheaval in their lives. Job’s world too goes from what seems ‘humanly possible’ to scenarios of extreme loss and pain.

But there is also something gained by reading stories of non-sense set in other worlds. We can both enter into the descriptions of confusion, and separate ourselves from them. We can empathise with unfairness, lack of help, lack of explanation – and also view these from the outside.

We emerge feeling understood – and able to view the circumstances from a more objective position, somehow. We are reassured in seeing that the world is madly incomprehensible, but that there are worse worlds, greater non-sense than we are currently experiencing.

Perhaps, through this reading process, we become able, like Alice, to pull away from going further inward. We may not as easily be able to stand and say of our situations ‘you’re nothing but a pack of cards!’, but we can challenge ourselves to look outward again, and to take action.

Just as books can help us when we despair, when we rage, so too they can accompany us on our journeys of confusion at the world.

We may not understand what is happening to us, but through this kind of reading, we ourselves are, once again, understood.