Part of the blogosphere

Blogging is a strange and wonderful thing. I started this blog almost a year ago when I made a pact with my then-friend (now boyfriend) to keep in touch this way. He had moved out of town last Christmas, and I started experimenting with blogging, and had, in one of our conversations, alluded to my new blog. I had originally decided that it was a time-consuming and unrewarding experience, but he talked me into keeping at it. It was my second attempt at blogging; the first had been a log linked to a now defunct website that another computer-savvy friend had set up for me. Through the months, this blog has developed a life of its own, and has morphed into something that, at times, seems simultaneously intimate and alien to me.

It always surprises me to find that people other than my friends visit the blog and sometimes even leave comments. Here is a partial list of people linked to my blog somehow, people I've met only through the blogosphere:

• A woman who is the same age as I am, who is married and has an adorable child. She has led me to imagine having that life myself. That nuclear family structure was a fantasy that I never aspired to until recently. Now, it's like a phantom pain that throbs and reminds me of what I'm missing (although it can't really be a phantom pain if it's something that I never had to begin with).
  

• A philosopher whose poems and rants are fascinating. He writes about the big, unanswerable questions, as well as the minuscule, humdrum things that somehow encapsulate an essence and a spirit.

• A mother of three adopted children, a nurse who writes so whimsically, poetically, and lovingly about the innocence and joy within each of her children. I had stumbled upon her blog during one of my “blog-surfing” sessions, and have been hooked ever since.
  

• A fellow teacher, an outdoorsy guy whose sense of adventure is as large as the sky. He is also gentle and tender, and loves his wife and little girl with an absolute ferocity.
  

Of course, I have a few friends who make sure that I don't feel abandoned, as though I'm sending my thoughts out into an empty void. They leave comments that, at turns, make me laugh or choke me up with gratefulness and love.

Memes are my favourite thing in the blogosphere, I must say. They really do take on a life of their own. In November, I had responded to a meme on poetry, one that I had found on litlove's blog. (She's another one that I must check out daily.) It originated with Cam, and has spawned and spread wildly. She has kept track of some of the responses here. It really is comforting to know that so many people care about poetry as much as I do, that a meme could link all of these strangers to one another. I might even say that it's utterly revolutionary. Just imagine....