Blogoworld

Picture taken from: www.imaginethatstudios.com/writing/index.html

Once in every while, perhaps twice a week; I take time off to do precisely what you're doing right now… to read someone else’s thoughts.
If there's one thing I love about the Internet and blogs in specific, is the freedom of expression… to write and express thoughts and emotions.
My favourite blogs are on the links to your right… feel free to visit those that inspire me.
Some are written like diaries…
Others are homes to images and photographs…
Then there's the poetry…
I especially love the poems; they seem to touch the bottom of my soul and remind me of a time when I felt the world was one big prose.
Then there are the stories…
The facts…
The fiction…
All opinions…
All perspectives of the form of expression.
And I lose myself… in the world of those who write them. Because somewhere in them is a reality known to me, in a twisted sense that only I and the writer would understand.
I don't particularly like giving my blog´s link to someone I know…
It's like giving them the key to your treasure chest…
The power to attack your Achilles heel…
It has very little to do with fear of criticism (I welcome all and any!)
And more with the fear that the reader won't understand…
Will misinterpret…
For a writer is far more than all the pieces of literature that he (in this case she) could write altogether.
Every sentence is a mere window to the writer’s soul… but not the full picture.
Strangers seem to understand this concept better.

There are people I avoid mentioning my blog to, for the simple reasons that there are sides to me they need not know.
Against my better judgment, I recently gave one of those someone’s the link to my blog… but I've quit fearing the consequences, in fact, it scares me that I'm scared of so little these days… fear is what makes us human… to have no fear is to have lost the blood within your veins to feel.

But returning to the words of those that inspire me…
I went through a blog of someone who began writing in order to relieve her soul… it's been a year and with it, she’s managed to map out her progress and the change brought about in that period of time.
http://thmys.blogspot.com/2006/08/one-year-old.html
She reminds me of someone who began writing for the same reasons, and then stopped… for the exact reason she began writing in the first place.
I miss her writing that always began and ended with sensuality.
Then there the spaghetti blog… the one that has no set schedule and that most of the time, I struggle to make sense out of. I realize though… that each entry is a piece, a fragment of a thought or a moment that the writer needed to get out his system.
Thoughts… opinions… some merely tell a story.
And who doesn't love a good story… I certainly do…
To be taken to the place that others create and lose myself within the tale.
You'd be surprised at the good literature put out there by simple people… people that during the week have jobs and families. That person could be occupying the chair in the cubicle next to you and you'd never know how deep that person's soul goes if you didn't know their thoughts, expressed in the form that only writing can take.

I read a piece that left me melancholy… I've met people who’ve lost their essence and choose to remain empty… a condition so sad and desolate that it makes my soul grieve for their death. This piece perfectly described these living zombies, stealing my breath and extracting a tear from my eye:
http://ascoresdemadalena.blogspot.com/2006/08/12-o-mundo-uma-casa-que-no-minha.html
I'd felt a similar emotion upon reading the following:
http://fantasyadream.blogspot.com/2006/08/poeira-do-tempo.html
But it was in the first poem that I read an opinion that peaked my curiosity. Strong and sincere, I was curious to its owner so I clicked on the commenter´s name and before I knew it, I found myself within another blog. Most of the most interesting blogs I know, I've found through this method but as I explored more… my heart skipped a beat.

Do you believe in signs?
I don't mean coincidences – God and Destiny are too great for those to exist.
I mean signs… like the kind that remind you that you're on the right track.
Or worse… the kind that bring up the thoughts you avoid in your head.
Like the smell of a certain perfume when a stranger walks by you…
Or that song playing on the radio…
A saying that was elsewhere once repeated…
Simple things, little things, which your brain immediately connects to a memory or a thought that’s filed in the back of your brain.
That feeling of deja-vu or that constant reminder.
Sometimes, it's the work of an angel that reminds me to pick up the phone and call one of my friends that either also thought of me all day or needed that particular contact.
Other times it feels like confirmation… as if I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to.
And there are times when it's the annoying insistence of a thought that won't get out my head… and that's what the new found blog was.
Another reminder.

A lot of people ask me about my expectations of my up and coming trip.
Am I excited? (Dumb question!)
Am I planning to see all the faces I once knew? (Dumb but reasonable question… yes I plan on touching base with all my old friends)
Do I plan on exploring? Tourist or Inhabitant? What are the changes I'm meant to find? (Now there's the tricky question!)
What are my true expectations?
I don't know…
I picture myself getting off the plane, walking out with my luggage and then putting my arms around the people I love!
After that… I'm on God’s good graces.
No emotion that I’ll feel afterwards seems greater than that moment…
The moment where I breathe Johannesburg’s polluted air; take a deep breath and feeling that sweet surrender we all feel on arriving home…
Home… is that truly home? It once was… what does it feel like now?
I don't know – so quit asking me!
I suddenly remembered the reasons why I'm counting down… because more than a holiday, I'm returning to the place where I can hear myself think, lower my defenses and listen to my heart.
To breathe and feel… that's what I most look forward to in 21 days…

Sometimes I wonder why I still write… I wonder if what I'm writing is still making a difference to those who read it. I know the opinion of most of my readers… even those that don't leave written comments. And even so I question of investment of time and effort… perhaps because after three years of writing, there are things that are often repeated even if not said in the same way. But as I commented on a friend’s blog, I wrote to her what I write to you know: Never write for others for your writing will feel fake and forced. After all… after all these centuries, I'm pretty sure everything that could be said; has been said before and the difference lies… in who says it and where it comes from. In other words, write from your heart; say it from your soul and your writing will always be an original.