tongue and groove

feed reader

my feed reader is the bane of my online existence. i like the idea of a feed reader--utilizing a tool that can make my blog reading more efficient and, therefore, more pleasurable. but my feed reader hasn't felt like my friend--it's felt like a burden...for years.

for several years i used Bloglines, but it reached a point where for some reason some of my favorite feeds weren't getting updated. a couple of years ago i switched over to Google Reader and even though i use it in the most basic way (privately and just to read blogs--i don't use any other bells and whistles), it works just fine for my needs.

that said, i've still felt burdened by it. i have eclectic interests, so my tendency is to subscribe to way too many feeds. i can be an impulsive subscriber, but i'm also quick to ditch a feed if it turns out that it's not relevant to what i thought i wanted from it and/or it just doesn't resonate with me.

over the last year or so i've been gradually tweaking my feed reader, but how to choose what to keep? it had reached the point a couple of years ago where it was taking me 2-3 HOURS to get through my feed reader every time i opened it! i don't know about you, but i'd like to have a life!  :)  how had i manifested such a burdensome obligation for myself?! every time i opened the damn thing, there were a couple  THOUSAND unread posts!

part of the problem was that it took me years to create a few folders--to cull out a few feeds that i read solely for interest in the subject matter, but was never going to feel compelled to pop out of the feed reader over to the blog to leave a comment. that helped a little. then i made two decisions that might seem like common sense to others, but took me years to arrive at: 1) i decided that i only wanted to 'have' to open my feed reader once or twice a week, and 2) i wouldn't be considered a 'bad' online friend if i didn't leave a comment on every post. (i have some serious issues about politeness. certain lessons were drummed into me at a young age and i'm still working on shedding them.) those decisions helped...a lot.

but a curious thing was at work: the more time i had to spend online, the less time i wanted to spend there. once i'd removed myself from a workplace situation that made me incredibly thirsty for the pleasures of my online life, i didn't need to drink so deeply from the well because my real life had become more pleasurable. i found myself struggling with the next layer of my feed reader dilemma. i wasn't reading my friends' blogs as regularly as i used to because a) i wasn't opening my feed reader as often, and b) once i did open it, i still had too many damn feeds to read, or at least way more than i wanted to be reading in my new less-time-online life. i had begun avoiding my feed reader the way one does a bill collector.

fast forward to this morning when as i was making coffee, i thought: (sigh) i should try to get through my feed reader today. i was feeling guilty that i was slacking on reading my friends' blogs, but i still felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of unread posts in my reader. and then it hit me: OH! i could create a "friends" folder and then i wouldn't feel so overwhelmed just reading their blogs! and there you have it: the obvious solution that only took me SEVEN YEARS to figure out.  :)

i'd love to hear how you handle your blog-reading activities. if you feel like sharing in a comment, please do.

natural human purpose

this morning i read Gretchen Rubin's assay, Why I No Longer Worry About Having a "Personal Style."  the line that really jumped out at me was this:

I don’t want to think too much about making authentic choices about things I don’t authentically care about.

in my previous post i found myself wondering if big dreams are really only big dreams if we have an audience for them. as we share more and more of our private lives and selves online, it's hard not to fall into the trap of caring about certain things simply because everyone else seems to. at times, the blogosphere and its offshoot, social networking, can feel like high school 2.0, filled with cliques, competition, comparisons, striving, disappointment and hurt feelings.

we can end up caring about our "personal style" not just in our closets and homes, but also in the online environments we create and share. we manipulate our image and style via the photos and videos we share. some develop a certain look online. some develop a look that's appealing to so many people that they spawn copycats. we might look around and think that if only our blogs, images, wardrobes, homes and art looked like that person's over there, then maybe we'd have lots of commenters, followers, fans and subscribers, too. but do we stop to ask ourselves if we authentically care about any of it? or do we adopt caring about it out of a need for acceptance and/or connection? sometimes it seems to me that we're so caught up in witnessing each other's lives that we forget to live inside our own. who are we doing this for?

please know i'm not judging anyone's choices--this is just me sharing what i'm thinking about these days. asking myself, as Gretchen wrote, what i authentically care about. as part of Mondo Beyondo, i created a list of big dreams, yet when i opened the list a week later to re-read it, i found myself wondering: whose dreams are these? are these really my dreams? do i authentically care about them, or are they dreams that someone with my skills, talents, interests should/would/could have? did i write them just to have something to write, or was that really my heart speaking?

if you missed it yesterday, i hope you'll check out my La Salonniere interview with Patti Digh. the last question i posed to her was about desire lines...about natural human purpose. i guess that's what i'm trying to get at: what's my natural purpose? not the one i'm adopting because others have, but the path i would naturally gravitate toward without any outside influence. it's there that my truest big dreams reside.

everyone has a story.

last night i watched episode 2 of season 2 of NBC's Who Do You Think You Are? last night's episode traced the ancestry of country singer Tim McGraw's fraternal lineage. episode 1 last week did the same with actress/singer Vanessa Williams. both were fascinating. what i love so much about the show is not that it's about the ancestry of celebrities--the series uses celebrities to hook our interest, since we might not tune in if the promo said we'd be viewing ancestral research for Bob down the street (Americans are nothing if not shallow)-- it's what i learn about our history that compels me to watch it. what i learn about our nation's history and the people who comprise the fabric of its very existence.

and just like last Friday night, as soon as the show was over, i made coffee (J was at a gig) and logged onto Ancestry to dig further into my own family's history. i did extensive research on my family tree last year at Ancestry, mostly on my mother's side. what's ironic is that prior to that, i knew much less about my maternal lineage than i did about my father's side of the family, yet i've been able to learn tons more about mom's side than dad's at the site. (but not to worry re my dad's lineage, a distant cousin's husband traced my Italian roots back to the 1700's about a decade ago. still working on finding our Azores Islands roots on the Portuguese side.) next thing i knew, 3-1/2 hours had gone by.

i can easily lose hours rooting around in my genealogical roots because each new piece of information leads to more questions. it's like putting together a giant puzzle that has tiny pieces. it really does make one wonder (at least it does me) about the power of DNA when you begin to see certain trends--certain patterns appearing in lives that are separated by generations.

last night i didn't feel like adding to my tree--seeing how far out i could stretch a particular branch. instead i decided to dig a little deeper on just one branch. i began to look for additional information on my nearest great-grandfathers on my maternal grandfather's side. in doing so, i came across a city directory from Omaha, Nebraska that listed three generations of great-grandfathers. i believe this one was dated 1889:

Milo S. Barnum was my great-great-great grandfather, Milo Seeley Barnum. (what a great name!) his son, my great-great-grandfather, was Jehiel R(ichards) Barnum and his son was my great-grandfather, Louis (it's misspelled in the directory) Octave Barnum. their ages would have been about 82, 50 and 20 when this directory was printed. Milo lived to be 88. he died in Omaha in 1895 and last night i found his burial plot information. Jehiel died young--he was only 52. he died before his father, in 1891. both he and his wife Marie-Adelaide (she was French-Canadian) are, i believe, buried in Omaha. my great-grandfather, Louis Octave, died in Port Hueneme, California (Ventura County) at age 75. his wife, my great-grandmother May Emmaline Ludlow (who i vaguely remember visiting when i was about seven) is buried in Weed, California, about three hours north of here. that's where my younger brother and i visited her when she lived in a trailer park next to my maternal grandparents.

my great-great-great grandfather, Milo, was born in Enosburg, Vermont in 1806. Enosburg is in northern Vermont, near Quebec. in 1834, he married Abigail Flint in Shipton, Quebec. in their later years, they ended up in Iowa and last night i learned that Abigail is buried in Dunlap, Iowa. Milo is listed as a farmer in that Omaha directory. it makes me wonder what sorts of crops he grew and what compelled him to relocate to Iowa from Quebec. it's not like his wife Abigail was from there--she was born in Danville, Quebec. did they know people in Iowa? had they heard stories about it being good farming land? Dunlap is near Omaha, even though it's in the next state, so Milo's relocation to Omaha isn't surprising.

Milo and Abigail gave birth to my great-great-grandfather Jehiel in Danville, Quebec in 1839. he married Marie-Adelaide Morin in Quebec at age 26. by the time he was 41 in 1880, they were living in Omaha. the Barnum men lived to ripe old ages (my grandfather lived to be 85)--what was the cause of Jehiel's death at age 52?

Jehiel's son, Louis Octave, my great-grandfather, was born in Quebec in 1868. some documents say he was born in Danville, but the U.S. Naturalization form he completed in 1924 lists his birthplace as St. Johnsburg, Quebec. he married May in 1892 and they were in Omaha in 1900. but they left Omaha and moved to Calgary, Alberta for a time. i just learned this last night when i found them listed on a 1916 Canadian census form. they later moved to Tacoma, Washington and ended up migrating southward. 

i'm sure you see how you could lose hours and hours rooting around digging to find information on just a handful of people, and by now i have hundreds in my family tree at Ancestry!  i could literally spend the rest of my life on this 'work' and if i did, i suspect i'd never find it anything less than fascinating. i realize that reading this may not be interesting to anyone else. but i truly do love hearing about everyone's ancestry, because it's each of our individual stories that has created our grand national story.

as synchronicity would have it, this morning's Daily Om email was titled, "Everyone Has a Story":

It's easy to forget sometimes that everyone has a story to tell if we take the time to listen. We are so accustomed to hearing the stories of people in the news that we sometimes lose track of the fact that the random stranger on the bus also has a fascinating story about where they came from and how they got to be where they are. The sheer variety of paths taken in this world, from farmers to CEOs to homeless people to world travelers, is indicative of how much we can learn from each individual.

that's just my way of saying that if you'd like to share any of your family's story in the comments, please feel free to do so. as Frasier Crane used to say, "i'm listening..."

La Salonniere recap

i can hardly believe it's already been 10 weeks since i  launched my interview blog, La Salonniere. in lieu of a new interview this week, i'm doing a recap of the first nine interviews. what a wonderful group of talented and creative people! if you missed any of their interviews over the last couple of months, i hope you'll take a moment to catch up because each one is chock-full of insights and tips on how to lead a more authentic, creative life.

thank you for reading. more great interviews are on the way!

and now, here's the recap.

find your tribe

if there's one piece of advice i'd share with new bloggers, it's this:  find your tribe. your tribe.

if i'd just started blogging in the last year or two, i think i'd feel quite overwhelmed and maybe more than a little intimidated. where to begin?! how do i know which blogs to read? which bloggers should i follow and friend?

when i look back on how the blogosphere felt when i entered it in 2003, it was like hanging out in a quaint little village compared to the firehose of social media demands we're bombarded with when we enter it these days.  

it's all just too much, and not just for newbies--for all of us. yet it's also a really exciting time because now, more than ever, we can curate our own experiences with all of the amazing technological tools and platforms at our disposal.

i've witnessed a curious phenomenon over the years. as more and more (and more) of us move toward entrepreneurship and self-employment, it can sometimes seem as if conformity rather than individuality is a driving force. i see it all the time when hurt feelings are expressed when someone feels left out of a group. those feelings come into play when we give others the power to recognize and validate us.

curate your own experience online. if you're someone who has an eclectic mix of interests (i fall into this category), give yourself permission to be curious about all of them. niches are helpful when we're creating revenue streams, but let your curiosity about the world spread its wings wide. something unexpected may strike a powerful chord within you. don't spend energy worrying about what everyone else is doing or who they're following and reading. find those who light that spark in you. 

Library of Congress photo of Senta Osoling by Alfred T. Palmer in Sept. 1942

reverb 10 - future self

the day 21 prompt at Reverb 10 is from Jenny Blake:  "Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead? (Bonus: Write a note to yourself 10 years ago. What would you tell your younger self?)" 

i'm going to flip this prompt around and start with a letter to myself 10 years ago...and then jump forward 5 years looking back to 2011.

this year your life has been turned upside down with your unexpected move to the Caribbean. you're probably feeling a little overwhelmed with trying to adjust to living on a little island in the West Indies, thousands of miles from friends and family. it's a bit insane (the life you've stepped into living in a band house and the culture, in general), but it's also fun even though it can be challenging at times. even though you've moved dozens of times before this, this is the first move where you've gotten a little glimpse at the possibility of reinvention. and that part feels freeing. even so, it will be hard to let go of some old patterns and you're not really going to reinvent yourself. but don't worry, in three years (when this photo will be taken) you're going to discover something called blogging and it's going to change your life in ways you can't even imagine. not at first--it's going to take some time--but if you stick with it and are sincere in your interactions with those you'll meet online, your concept of community will never be the same. you will finally find a group of like-minded souls--people all over the world who accept and support you unconditionally--and for the first time, you'll understand what it feels like to have a tribe. at times this blogging thing is going to feel sort of like high school. sadly, cliques and hierarchies will form, even though most people will start blogging to get away from those things. i know it's hard to imagine right now because you don't even own a computer! but there will come a time when what i'm describing to you is so mainstream that even journalists and celebrities will do it.

so let me give you a little advice on what you can expect down the road. by the time you reach my age, your life will have changed drastically in some ways and hardly at all in others. but you will feel profoundly different than you did 10 years earlier. many people you've known will have died--family members, friends of your parents, friends you went to school with, people younger than you. and when you stand at 60 five years from now, you're going to realize with a quickening of your breath that it went by in a blink. it's not just that life can feel short--it's that life doesn't often feel precious...and it should.  so this coming year, in 2011, i want you to remember how little you care about superficial things and let yourself go even deeper. i want you to not waste time. savor every single day. continue to cultivate the relationships that really matter to you. set aside time each day for creative work. take walks. ride your bike. be kind. love your family even when they annoy you. give money to charity (the dollar amount doesn't matter--the act of giving does). listen to your intuition. nourish your body with healthy food. stay fit. stretch. breathe. and most of all, love. especially yourself.

reverb 10 - friendship

day 16 and the Reverb 10 prompt comes from Martha Mihalick*:   "Friendship. How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?"

i have some remarkable friends, many of whom i've never met face-to-face. i could have written about a number of them in answer to this prompt. my 2010 has been filled with support from my wonderful network of friends. they've cheered me on when i feel inspired and propped me up when i feel down.  they're a kind, smart, creative, loving, generous and funny set of cheerleaders. like many of you, i learned long ago that online friendships are real friendships.

many of us have met some of our online friends in person. this year, i've had the fortune of flipping  that around--two of my real-world friends and i have taken our friendship into the virtual world. we've done that primarily at Facebook. you won't find us writing on each other's walls or leaving comments for each other on updates. we have a private message thread that we've kept going for over a year. we occasionally email, text or have a conference call, but Facebook is our primary messaging tool.

it hasn't been an easy year. all of us have adult children who don't always make the best choices in life, creating stress for the parents. one of us is trying to adjust to life in a very red state after spending a lot of her adult life in a very blue university town. another has been out of work all year. but it's the third one who has truly suffered this year. at the beginning of the year, she wrote of some changes in her mother's health. she traveled out of state to see her mom and reported back to us that her mother' s appetite seemed to be diminishing rapidly. in what seemed like very short order, there was a cancer diagnosis. and then my friend and her two sisters began shifting things around in their lives so that their mother could move in with one of the sisters. two of them closed down their mother's home out of state. those who lived out of town visited the third sister's home regularly to spend time with their mom. and then, in what felt like much too short a time, my friend's mother...was gone.

my friend who lost her mother this year teaches 2nd grade. one of her students has leukemia. several mothers of students in her classroom are battling various cancers. it all seems so utterly cruel. yet through it all, my friend conducts herself with such grace and humor and kindness and generosity.

in answer to the prompt, how has this been a perspective-shifter? it's reminded me in my darker moments that i have much to be thankful for. it's a daily reminder that life can feel very short and is much too precious to be taken for granted.

*Ms. Mihalick is, according to the Reverb 10 email, an editor at Harper Collins. the link provided for her in the email is to the Harper Collins site, which i prefer not to link here since their front page heavily promotes Sarah Palin's books.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you know i'm not one for organized religion, but that doesn't mean i don't love gospel music.  ;)  for A Month of Music today i offer the incredible Dorothy Love Coates, one of the greatest gospel singers ever.  i got to see her perform live once...about 20 years ago...in the gospel tent at JazzFest in New Orleans. she very nearly blew the roof off the tent. it was one of the most thrilling musical moments i've ever experienced.

reverb 10 - community

Caligator gives us the prompt for day 7 at Reverb 10:   "Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?"

for the first few years we lived in the Caribbean, i wrote a newsletter-type email and sent it to about 50 family members and friends back in the States a few times a year. over time, the emails i got in return grew fewer and fewer in number, yet whenever i'd send an email saying i was planning to discontinue the newsletters i'd suddenly get a flood of responses urging me to keep writing. but i was  frustrated that it had turned into such a one-way communication. people on the mainland wanted to hear about our new life in the tropics, but didn't want to take the time to let us know what was happening in their lives. looking back, maybe they thought our life was somehow 'exotic' and feared their lives would sound too routine by comparison. if they'd only known how isolated and lonely it felt there--i would have so welcomed news from home.

and then one day, surfing online, i saw a story about a blog. i wasn't even sure i understood what a blog was, except that it was a way to self-publish your thoughts and post online. it occurred to me that it might be a good solution for my email problem. i could still write, but the onus wouldn't be on me to have to email everyone. i could send the blog URL to everyone and if they felt like reading the blog, they could. so that's what i did. on Labor Day Weekend 2003, i created my first blog. at the time i couldn't have dreamed or imagined the community i would find in the blogosphere. the one blog i'd seen was written by a mainstream war correspondent, so i wasn't exactly thinking "community" when i started mine.

there i was, blogging away on our laptop on a tiny table in our oceanfront condo in the West Indies. since no one was commenting, i figured no one back home was even bothering to read it. but i kept posting, mainly because it gave me a good outlet to vent my frustrations about the challenges of island life or to just muse about my thoughts. i looked at it as sort of an online diary. i knew no one i knew in the islands would be reading it, because i'd kept it secret from everyone there. i might as well have been sending signals into space in the search for extraterrestial life.  and then one day i came home from work, logged into my Blogger account and there was a comment on one of my posts. i was stunned. how had someone found my blog?! not only that, but the person who had discovered it lived in Amsterdam and was a photographer. a photographer in Amsterdam had found my blog...it seemed so surreal!

my niece, Kayla, in the community garden in our neighborhood

the community i've experienced in the blogosphere in the last 7+ years has been nothing short of life-affirming. you have cheered my successes and comforted me in my pain. you've offered me authentic and deep friendship that doesn't require face-to-face interaction. you've overwhelmed me with unexpected generosity. you've understood when i've needed to take a break from blogging and welcomed me with open arms when i've returned. you've given all of that to me in 2010. the last couple of years have been challenging ones in some ways and my blogging suffered for it. but this year i made my way back, tentatively at first and then really jumping in the last few months. and it's felt so good to be back, to feel like i'm returning to my authentic blogging self. i can't possibly thank you adequately for all that you have given me over the last many years. you are my tribe. you are the people i turn to in times of crisis who i know will be there for me with unconditional love and judgment-free support.

i've met so many remarkable people in my blogging journey. about 5-6 years ago, i had an idea to create an interview series done via blogging. i wanted it to be sort of like a virtual salon. these days, of course, you see interviews on blogs all the time, and maybe that's why even though the idea was always in the back of my mind i didn't pursue it. and then suddenly last week it hit me that year after year i've wanted to do it and yet never did. i wondered why (once again) i thought it would be okay for you to do it, but not me. i think i was waiting for the permission police to grant me a permit, and since that wasn't going to happen anytime soon--or ever--i thought what the hell, and just did it.

so if you ask me, as the prompt did, what community i'd like to create and deeply connect with in 2011, the answer would be my brand-new interview series which i launched yesterday at a companion blog, La Salonniere. i want to showcase some of the amazing people i have met in my community. what i love so much about blogging is that at its best, it breaks down hierarchies. it doesn't matter who you were before you started your blog...what your title is or was or even if you have one...how much money you do or don't have. all that matters to me is you...who you are. as a tiny way to give back to those who have given me so much over the years, i want to shine a spotlight and say i see you and i cherish you.

i got some lovely responses to my first post at the new blog about my interview with the fabulous Lori-Lyn Hurley. and one of the first responses was a tweet from @othermuse. it was a lovely, generous comment but i'm not sharing it because of what she said...i'm sharing it because she's that photographer in Amsterdam, the first person who found my first blog. and that, my friends, is community.