Citizen of the Month came up with this delightful idea. Perhaps we should interview bloggers (he had a formula go look) and see how every day bloggers/people are fascinating and then we wouldn't be wasting bandwidth on losers like the French-City Hotel heiress. I am loosely paraphrasing here. I'm all for real people and I get to wear the reporter hat one more time.
The Absolutely Inspirational Bev from Funny The World
One of the things I love about the blogosphere is the chance to start a dialogue with people from all over the world. It was what drew me to this project. (I am allergic to memes and schemes without a reason.) Bev's little slice of the blogosphere is a happy place dedicated to the dogs she fosters (no dog questions I know nothing about dogs), theatre, writing for the local paper, the people in her life and joy for life that is uncommon on the Internet. I reckon Bev is the person you want to sit next to at the dinner party.
Not to say life has been a bowl of cherries, she has lived through what has been some really hard times. But her spirit seems unbroken. She could easily have let life events wear her down. But no, she is celebrating life and the lives of those around her. I think there isn't enough of that out there in blogosphere.
Oh yeah, and she's been blogging since March 2000 and get this, she has only missed five days since she started. I think I missed five days last week.
So read on. I hope you enjoy. (Do go check her out.) My comments and questions are in bold.
I poked around your blogs here and there randomly. It seems to the casual observer that you have had your share of tragedy. Yet the tone of the blog is overwhelmingly upbeat. (And very well written might I add.) There is no poor poor miserable me. Is there a secret to keeping this healthy perspective on life? How do you get over tragedy and still manage to see well, the funny in the world? (You remind me of a very young version of my grandmother. I adored her. She would have blogged. She died in the late 80s.)
Hmmm...tragedy vs upbeat. Good question (and thanks for the compliment on my journal). I guess I had good training. My sister was murdered in 1971 and I watched how my mother dealt with that tragedy, as well as the eventual deaths of 8 of her 9 siblings, many of them from cancer. She has always remained mostly upbeat, sometimes aggravatingly so.
With the kids' deaths, you realize that you can either curl into a ball and give up on the world, or you can realize that you have three living children who need you, even though they are adults. Also, the thing I have found most rewarding since Dave and Paul died was that every so often -- still, more than 10 years since Dave's death -- someone will stumble over my journal or my vanity web site and write me a note about how one or the other kids affected their lives. What a waste it would be to turn in on myself and make the end of their lives the end of my own. It does not compute. I wish I could say I drew great strength from religion, but I'm not a particularly religious person, so it just seemed like common sense. Sure you cry--and I still do, periodically. But you can't give up on life.
I feel like I've stumbled into the wise guru's cave. You've been blogging since March 2000 -- coincidentally about the time I conceived The Boy. In 2001, I had great plans to keep the family afar updated on our little millennium project. It lasted a total of 35 days. Non consecutive. I hadn't heard about blogs back then and my attempts were limited to some really complicated Dreamweaver stuff that looked like crap. My problem with blogging every day is that after a while I bore myself. (How much of me can I take really.) So how do you keep it interesting for yourself after all this time? Have you ever called it quits?
It was "journaling" when I first began! Now it's both. "Funny the world" is a journal, and its mirror blogger site, "Airy Persiflage," is a blog...at least in my mind!). I've always loved to write. Before the internet there were letters to write. Writing is my escape.
When I began, I had this notion that I wanted eventually to write a column for a newspaper, to be the new Erma Bombeck. Then I found out how difficult it was to be Erma Bombeck. But what kept me going was the compulsion to write, essentially, a newspaper column a day.
I now have between 250 and 300+ readers a day. For a year and a half, I dieted and was very religious about recording everything about the weight loss process. Then I had 350-400+ readers, and a chunk have left me now that I'm fat again. But I consciously try to vary the entries, to have something for everyone. I don't want to do 5 dog entries in a row. I don't want to rant about social issues every day. I don't want to write boring entries about What I Did Today every day. So it's a mix and many times I'm consciously aware of picking a topic just because I haven't written "that kind" of an entry in awhle.
I've never quit. The longest I didn't blog was about 5 days when we were on a boat floating up the Thames (or was it down?) from London to Oxford and I had no internet access. We stopped in a tiny town which had--I kid you not--a COIN OPERATED computer and I managed to put out a quick journal entry just to say I'd done it. I knew all the internet cafes in London and when I couldn't sleep at night, would slip out to the 24 hour internet cafe and post an entry. I've been really compulsive about all of it.
I love that you review plays and are so active in the theatre community. Given the internet, TiVo and an era of what seems like instant gratification. Do you think theatre will continue to be important in the future? How do we teach future generations to appreciate it as an art form? My parents (big patrons of theatre here) bought us a Kid's pack of tickets. I was struck how engaged the kids gets when there are real actors in front of them. (Even when the play between you and me was very tremendously awful.)
Your question about theatre is interesting because I reviewed a show just this week where there was a Q&A following the performance and that very question was asked. I don't know what the future of theatre is. I can't imagine a world without theatre, but I suspect that the nature of it will gradually change. Our own kids became INVOLVED in theatre because ticket prices were way beyond our reach for a family of seven. Now two of the three left (and one of the ones who died) are involved with theatre as a profession. I am so glad that there is a lot of outreach to schools, and around here there are a surprising number of opportunities for kids to learn theatre. It's gets into your blood and if you learn to love it when you're young, you'll continue to find ways to enjoy it.
Unrelated gratuitous question: What do you think of the new wave of "rock" musical like Mamma Mia and the one using Queen as a soundtrack? (I ask because you say you never really "got" rock music.)
The "rock" musicals are not my favorite (tho I'm not sure I would put ABBA in that category, since I enjoyed Mama Mia). I loved "Jersey Boys," didn't like the Billy Joel one so much. Slept through "Rent." But they are bringing new people to the theatre and anything that does that isn't a bad thing! (Have you ever seen the movie of "Tommy"? Now THERE's an experience!!!)
I had to laugh when I read the post about Gymboree, Carters (they have the best softest blankets (and the best swaddling blankets. We still have one from when The Boy was a babe.) How do you feel about being a grandma? And what kind of wisdom do you think all parents should have right now even if we aren't ready to hear it?
About being a grandmother, I am ecstatic. When we had five children, I never dreamed that I would be celebrating my 65th birthday with NO grandchildren. My mother was 47 when our first child was born. But one son decided not to have children; our daughter didn't really have a serious love interest until she was 40--and her lifestyle (music teacher, theatre technician, theatre musician) doesn't lend itself to being a parent. Tom & Laurel lost one child in the first trimester and I was beginning to think it would never happen, so I am thrilled. I am sad that we are 300+ miles from them and we will be the "distant grandparents," when I had hoped to be the "babysitting grandma" who made cookies for the kids when they came home from school. That ain't going to happen. But I will love this little girl with all my heart and can't wait for her to get here.
As for advice, given that I know what it's like to lose a child, the advice would be to savor every moment you have with that child. Don't overschedule. Give a child a time to be a child, not constantly rushing to this and that activity (though do those, too, within reason). Never, ever use put-down words in disciplining a child. Never name-call (it's shocking how often I hear parents tell kids they are stupid or bad or fat or whatever).
And for prospective grandparents, the advice I hope to follow is to love your grandchildren, but remember that you had your own chance to parent, and this is your child's turn to parent. You won't agree with every decision they make, but everyone makes mistakes and that's how they learn. If the child's health isn't in danger, hands off and go with whatever decision the parents make.
(Ask me again in five years whether I've followed that advice or not!)
