Drowning in Uganda I lay on blogs as my raft. Floating in words, pictures, I found hope and inspiration. I’ve always loved biographies, documentaries. Even as an actress, telling narrative tales, I devoured true stories. Tell me your life, your stumbles, your successes, your humiliations. Tell me how you did it, how you live it, how you survive it.
Even more in this time of snapshots, instagram, the quick and easy picture I want to pull it away and see what is under the filter. Show me the real.
I love Design Mom and her brilliance with the creative life alongside her battle with depression. I love that she uses her platform to stand up for what she believes in even when that invites conflict.
I love this young woman at Oh Dear Drea who for some reason has captured my heart. I watch her stumble and strive and yearn and cheer for her to keep going.
I love Design for Mankind and her “Chasing Slow” and beautiful poetic words and questioning of what else there might be.
Even at the popular Cup of Jo, Joanna gives us just enough of her that I feel if I saw her on the street in NY I could say hi and yeah, parenting can be tough. Thank you for telling us the real.
But it was Hey Natalie Jean (sadly no longer blogging) that stole my heart. Watching her move to NY, explode into herself, leave NY and have to painfully reinvent was like watching my own movie play.
It was through these blogs that I realized the power of one person’s story.
It was through these blogs that I saw how one person can touch, shape, move us just by telling their life. How we should walk out our door, knock on our neighbor’s and begin to tell our tale and then hear what they have to say, how they’ve managed it all, what has moved them, what has shook them, what has it all meant to them.
Because that is what we are, what we have to share, our stories.
I just ordered a book today whose title comes from a quote from the writer Katherine Mansfield, “Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life.”
That distance between lives can seem so far. It’s our stories that connect us, our humanity that we share, and I am so grateful to these blogs that they share theirs and were a lifeline to me when I needed it most. Please, tell me your life.