What has big ears and a long nose?

A recent post by a sister blogger raised the question of what topics are appropriate for blogging. Is it important to steer clear of controversial subjects that might offend readers? Is it important to provide an upbeat message? To avoid negativity and whining? Frankly, these are questions that hadn't really occurred to me. My primary concern is achieving a reasonable level of truthfulness while protecting my own privacy and that of my friends and family members. And I'm finding that quite difficult these days. Some days I feel as if I'm blogging about everything but the elephant in the room. Actually, there are several elephants at home and at work. They are turning my life into a zoo! I wish I could send them back to their native lands, but they seem to have settled in for the long haul.

Blogging, the slo-mo meditation

I started blogging out of curiosity piqued by my friend RAK's plunge into i-sharing. What drove me on at first was that I set myself a 12-step-style challenge of 90 posts in 90 days. I've already crapped out a few times, so I won't meet that goal unless I double up on some days, but doubling-dipping feels like cheating—and then, too, even the most faithful of my readers (both of them) have their limits. I continue now because, well, I've become addicted to setting down my thoughts, no matter how random or trivial—or especially when they're random or trivial. It has become a kind of meditation.

Most meditation techniques (that I've heard of) rely on concentration on a single locus—the breath, a mantra, an image—and observing and gently dismissing the thoughts that vie with it for your attention. Since my diagnosis of breast cancer, I've had a severe case of so-called monkey mind. Guided imagery and particularly yoga have been helpful in giving me respite from the blur of impish little half-thoughts flitting in and out of my consciousness. And blogging is serving as a sort of slo-mo version of the observation-and-dismissing part of meditation. Stopping and looking full on at the fleeting, fragmentary mental activity that continually fires on the periphery of my brain, examining it thoroughly enough to translate it into words, committing it to a written record so I don't have to try to remember it—all that is helping me somehow.

So, dear readers, when I natter on about something mind-bogglingly inconsequential, know that it's in service of my sanity. I'm sorry if it's playing monkeyshines with yours.