not the last post - looking backward



Sometimes I think about ending the blog.  From time to time my enthusiasm wavers.  Sometimes I blog weekly, sometime monthly. Sometimes I think about ending it. But I realize I'm not ready to quit just yet. Ideas for posts flow into my mind, turning into words as I sit at the screen and type. I enjoy this process. Without the blog, what would I do with the ideas? Or maybe I'd stop having ideas?

This is the 340th post I've done since I started blogging in January 2008, almost 8 years ago. I have no idea how many words that comes to - more than anyone, including me, would go back and read.

One of the best aspects of blogging is making cyber-friends. But you've got to basically blog for yourself, I believe. Too much focus on numbers makes blogging stressful - for me, anyway.  I read somewhere that even if only one person gets something out of a post, that's enough.









Yesterday I was putting the washing out, and noticed a tiny little hairy caterpillar walking along one of the lines. It was walking purposefully, across what was, for it, a huge precipice. I wondered how it got there, why it was alone, and where it was going. Last night it rained hard, and I wondered if it found food and shelter, and survived the rain. When I saw it I thought of grabbing my camera, but the caterpillar was so small, the chance of getting a good photo was slight. So I just watched, and am painting the picture in words. I realize I want a blog so I can share experiences like this.



I also want a blog so I can share photos of diverse and precious nature experiences. The top photo is of a ladybird on my car's windscreen. The next four are of my garden. The last two photos are of the pond in the Aged Care facility where my mother lived.

Sometimes I'm just not into my blog. There is a life outside blogging. When I'm not here, in this special virtual place, the blog is still here, suspended in that weird space we call cyberspace, available for access to anyone who wants to visit, including me ...

POSTSCRIPT

It's the morning after I wrote the post above, and only days after the killings in Paris. I wonder uncomfortably if I should be writing about that situation, or at least not ignoring it. The world seems to have pockets of peace amid islands of chaos and suffering. What happened in Paris was horrendous. But they at least will be named and recognized, unlike civilians killed and injured in countries like Syria, who are not counted or featured in the western media. I don't really want to write about this. Plenty of other people are doing that. I tell myself that the natural environment is the arena in which war and human suffering exist, and it's OK to focus on the garden and nature. I know it is really ... but ... the doubts creep in.

Comments

  1. Sue, you're not alone. Blogging is really a very solitary thing. From my own experience, there are times when the thoughts and ideas flow effortlessly into words in just a few minutes. Other times, it's days before the ideas begin to form into words. And ideas can often sit on a backburner even longer.

    To be honest, we "blog" for ourselves. In this huge cyber world, if even only one person reads what we have to say, we have reached out and touched the stars!

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    1. thanks Jane, I love the idea of touching the stars.

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  2. I enjoyed your thoughts on blogging, especially "Without the blog, what would I do with the ideas? Or maybe I'd stop having ideas?" Even after almost 7 years and 1789 posts I am not ready to stop - like you what would I do with the words and photos!

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    1. Wow! and I thought 340 posts were a lot! So pleased you stopped by, Loree.

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  3. Sue, I spent fifteen minutes writing a comment on how I shared your feelings of blogging and then a message came up saying your computer ran into a problem and has to shut down. Maybe its just as well as I was banging on about doing this for ten years, eventually finding how to encourage people to comment and then losing those whom you had come to consider as friends, taking it personally and just spoiling what should be a pleasurable thing to do. I didn't realise until I started getting comments that the majority of garden bloggers are women, hey that's fine by me, once you get your head around it. Anyway I will continue and I hope you also do.

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    1. With lots of things I do there seem to be mainly women, I don't know why. I think it doesn't matter. What you wrote about losing cyberfriends I find interesting. I wonder if the rules of friendship in cyberspace are different to expectations in the 'real' world? Anyway, I'll continue to blog too, and hope to maintain our enjoyable cyber-friendship.

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  4. I was disconcerted to realise that while the news was focused on Paris
    there were also earthquakes in Japan and Mexico and and
    The world is a strange place. I'll be in the garden tomorrow.

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    1. I'll be in the garden too unless it's too, too hot.

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  5. High five Sue for all the blog posts o/' '\o Glad to be following your blog. Today I am intrigued by the short shrubs with yellow and pink flowers. They look lovely together and oh my, they are so lush-looking. The weather here is a little weird as well. Although it has been raining like crazy here in the late afternoons, I still see butterflies coming to the garden. So... that caterpillar, it might have just survived somehow :-)

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    1. thanks Steph for your cheery comment. The yellow flowered bushes are Santolina and the pink Teucrium betonicum. They are really tough and don't seem to mind how hot and dry it gets.

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    2. Amazing flowers :-) Thank you for letting me know their iDs. You have a great day!

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  6. I found myself nodding while reading this post--I couldn't agree with you more. It feels trivial and selfish to write about gardening ... then again, the little miracles of this world are ever more important in times of great chaos and crisis. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and insights honestly. I hope you will continue to blog for a very long time. You are one of only a few Australian garden bloggers that I follow. I do enjoy your blog so much!

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    1. Hi Beth, thank you so much for your complimentary comment. I enjoy your blog too.

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  7. I've never been a blogger but love to read others thoughts and ideas. I usually don't respond either but have conversations in my head with people I'll never know...but do. I love nature and gardening. Most of my friends don't. For me reading blogs connects my mind with other like minded people and gives me quite satisification. We read more than enough of a world that is often lacking in happiness. So bloggers please keep sharing your ideas and thoughts. This is one reader to whom you give simple pleasure and I'm sure there are many more.

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    1. I so appreciate your comment, Suzanne. It's really good, and so encouraging, to know you are there. Although we do blog for ourselves, comments like this make it all worthwhile.

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  8. Please don't give up, it is so interesting reading about your garden and the local wildlife. I too feel like giving up sometimes, especially when I am spending more time in front of my lap top than I am gardening. I suppose I write my blog as a record of the garden, as I know one day that we will have to move to somewhere with a much smaller garden as we get older.

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    1. We will move one day too, when the garden gets too much for me. But maybe we will keep blogging and keep in touch still, because it's never just about a garden, the gardener is integral to the blog.

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  9. Blogging should be for your enjoyment. As long as you want to do it, do it! I know blogging has enriched my life - it gives me a purpose and a pleasure, to share the beauty I find in life. I decided to blog daily when my best friend from childhood received a cancer diagnosis - a cancer with a low survival rate- in case she was up to reading on any given day. Now, even after her passing two months ago today, I find myself still blogging daily. With terrorism and evil sweeping the world, I think it is more important than ever to bear witness to the everydayness of life. Life is so precious, and too short for too many. So please, keep on blogging when you feel the need to. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

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    1. thanks for this, Alana. I'm sorry about your friend, but what a beautiful reason for blogging every day.I love your phrase 'bear witness to the everydayness of life.' I will keep blogging, although I will stop if I stop enjoying it.

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  10. I could not bring myself to blog about the terrorism in Paris or around the world. And I agree focusing on nature, on kindness on life. I do hope you will keep blogging Sue...I so enjoy seeing your garden and learning about life where you are.

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    1. Thanks, Donna, I also enjoy seeing your amazing garden.

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  11. Beautifully said, Sue. I think we all contemplate quitting or at least slowing down with the blogging at times but the cyber friends really are the best part of it and I've had the great good fortune to meet quite a few of them in person. Kris at Late to the Garden Party wrote, "This Bloom Day arrives at a difficult time. I suspect that, like me, you're sick at heart over the news out of Paris. After 9/11, I hoped that we'd find a way to end the hatred and inhumanity that leads to such acts of terrorism. After each new incident, I wonder what we can do. A blog post is a small thing but bloggers create communities based on shared interests, which in turn support friendship and goodwill. And friendship and goodwill is a start."

    I have enjoyed your thoughtful writing and great photographs and am glad that you continue to blog!

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    1. Thank you for that helpful quote from Kris, Peter. There is so much friendship and goodwill in our online communities, I guess we shouldn't under-estimate the importance of that.

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  12. I am so glad this is not your last post. I enjoy reading your ideas and seeing your images. You must not think that not writing about all the sadness in the world is ignoring it. Who knows how many sad people find strength in reading about your garden.

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  13. http://www.lirralirra.com/
    Thought you might enjoy this bird blog - photography et al.
    Debbie

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    1. love it - have subscribed by email and also added it to my blog list. Thanks, Debbie.

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  14. One can't ignore terrorism, but one way to fight it is to continue onward without letting it destroy our way of life. I agree that bloggers do form virtual bonds, and those friendships are an important way to promote goodwill across the nations. One never realizes the impact your words or photos may have in another's life.

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    1. thanks for this, Deb, I guess whatever happens, we just continue to live our lives the best we can.

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  15. Is that root beer plant with the leprechaun statue? I can relate to everything you've said about blogging -- I think about the amount of time I devote to it for insufficient numbers of readers and no income from it. I also think of it as being in service to God because when someone is looking for info on a particular plant, they search for it on the internet and find me, then I have helped someone.

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    1. The plant on the right is Lychnis, behind are English violets. I'm not familiar with root beer plant. Thanks for your interesting feedback about what blogging means to you, Linda.

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