Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Open windows


Early morning blog visits had the feel of looking in through lighted windows at lives not my own, a topic touched upon elsewhere recently. Winter's early nightfall gives us reasons to be silent witnesses along darkened streets. The glow of a still-displayed Christmas tree catches the eye, but so does a living room before the curtains are drawn. We have so much in common, simply being part of the same species. The ways in which we differ may be even more vast.

Before 8 a.m. I observed rural landscapes, territory where January has backyards and open country held immobile by ice and snow. Scrolling back through posts I'd missed I found mention of holiday reunions, saw the Nativity cast with a whimsical eye and was taught how to make a proper cup of tea. In another country I discovered job opportunities in pattern and surface design, then learned that a baby held in prayer was home from the hospital. At my first blog stop I was reminded of my mother, how assuming the role of caregiver leaves no part of our ordinary world untouched.

There is a mystical connection in finding so many hearts offered so freely. It is impossible to remain unmoved by some of the experiences that unfold or the reverence with which they are examined. It is a vast planet. Several dozen sites where writers seek meaning and the steadiness of truths that don't shift may not tell us all there is to learn of histories, shared yet separate, but they hint at bonds that hold more tightly than we believed.

Allowing ourselves to be known to strangers, an act I once thought foolish, even dangerous, is neither, but instead so much more. Fear deflates, isolation releases us as identifiable reality steps toward us from these open doors. Our stories may vary in detail but what prompts us to tell them is where out hands meet, proof that the marvelous cannot be overestimated. Honesty rises early and, before its hands are warm, starts typing.

26 comments:

37paddington said...

oh. my. god. that last paragraph again. you build to it like a sure wave and then you just power it home. so well said. so deeply shared.

yes. this is how it is.

this is so exactly how it is.

Melissa Green said...

Dear Marylinn, how lucky we are to have your observing self seeing so generously and clearly. I sometimes hear your footfall outside my windows painted with dawn and am ever so glad that you have come to peek in over the sill and share the shadows of my life. xo

Marylinn Kelly said...

Angella - Thank you. May the wonder I feel for these happenstance connections never diminish.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Melissa - Shadows may be part of what you share, yet it is the brightness that calls across the road, urging a closer look. xo and thank you.

Artist and Geek said...

Marylinn-there is nothing I can add to another eloquent post. Except, keep those hands warm.

Robert the Skeptic said...

I had recently heard that many bloggers have forsaken blogging for FaceBook instead, mostly younger bloggers at that.

I am not sure what to think of this, other than I do enjoy sharing accounts and memories and experiences with others and finding we have more in common than not.

Donna B. said...

I can only echo everyone's appreciation for your eloquence, keen observations and the magic you create with your words....

Angelia said it best...
"oh.my.god."

Absolutely right on...

Elisabeth said...

The truth comes out in the early morning, before we have time to edit. Thanks, Marylinn.

RachelVB said...

The morning is so much closer to dreams - as we have just left them. Perhaps we still have crumbs on our feet from the journey? I hate getting up early and always drag my feet, but then I sit in my own quiet in the dark with a warm light on and it reminds me why I do.
This is lovely.
xo
Rachel

susan t. landry said...

gosh, marylinn; you do have a way with words! what a beautifully written post. the quality of the writing in your blog and so many others (many of the authors' names appear above) knocks my socks off. clicking on each new entry is like opening a present.
xo
susan

Kass said...

I love the openness and connectedness of the blogging world too.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Artist and Geek - Good morning and thank you. Been a bit shivery for So. Cal. but one pushes on.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Robert - I am still with Facebook, mainly mixed media art connections, but find it to be nothing at all like having a blog. But then I'm not their target generation. I am happy with the depth of exchange I find through blogging.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Donna - My thanks...among my connections are bloggers I found through you, then followed their links, etc., etc. I was thinking of Penny yesterday and how we come to care about each other to an extent we could not have anticipated.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Elisabeth - Yes, before we have too much time to think...of course, we can always go back and delete...You're welcome...I hope the New Year has started benevolently.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Rachel - Thank you. My early morning starts with fixing breakfast so writing is not the first thing. But sometimes I can do a bit of reading before, encountering others whose work began while they were closer to their dream states.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Susan - Thank you so much. The comments left here are certainly gifts to me and I love the way the circle widens as we find each other.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Kass - There is richness I never could have imagined. As Susan said, each click reveals a present, always fresh, always surprising. Aren't we fortunate?

Sultan said...

Very nicely expressed.

Anonymous said...

Wonderful! And yes, I love peeking into the lives of other people. When in Amsterdam years ago, I noticed that they had windows both at the front and back of the house, such that one could look right through. I fell in love with just seeing the ordinary lives of ordinary people (as if there were such). Come to think of it, those were the kinds of stories and books I loved when I was small too...

Marylinn Kelly said...

Laoch - Thank you. Still thinking about your gift book...

Marylinn Kelly said...

Melinda - I loved the panorama Easter eggs, the sugar shells with scenes inside them. Seeing into the houses - Amsterdam has always seemed charming in so many ways - is not unlike that, one still invents the stories of what goes on there. Thank you for visiting, for commenting.

T. said...

What a gift we have to be able to form this community! My earlier years would've been far less lonely if only the internet & blogging had existed then.

Thank-you for this eloquent and elegant expression of human connectedness at its best.

Marylinn Kelly said...

T - Thank you. I can't know if the person I was then would have appreciated this gift as I do now, but I can imagine. Thank goodness we endured to reach this place.

Anonymous said...

maybe these are a digital version of morning pages -

the julia cameron exercise...

Marylinn Kelly said...

Denise - They may be that, or the graduate version, since I imagine many of us did those pages. But what was solitary about that exercise now has company, voices other than just our own.