A few weeks ago, I visited with a friend and colleague at his home in the mountains of western North Carolina. While exploring the banks of a slow, wide river that runs along his road, we encountered butterflies “puddling” on the shore. He exclaimed “I’ll post this to my mind blog.” It was a playful sentiment that made us all giggle. But the joy of thinking about one’s mind blog has lingered with me– especially as I had not endeavored to post here for quite some time.
As I shared in my first ever post here many months back, my early blogging in the 2000s was for people– people I could name, people that I knew. There was an intimacy to sharing, an excitement about the possibilities of the digital realm, and an acceptance of inexpert writing, as we were (and are) all works in progress. I wrote then “with the advent of Facebook, everything changed. Eventually, most of my friends stopped blogging. I stopped blogging too. Our space had been co-opted. Soon, we left the pathless woods to walk the superhighway— hypnotized by the blue website.” But what I didn’t add then was that, although many of us stopped blogging, we never stopped making. The hands of artists are never still.
We write letters, stories, and create art. Sometimes we do this all at once in expansive creative bursts that are simultaneously letters and stories and art. Often, I’ll digitize my works and then remake them, blending even more images and words to create new visuals and reimagined stories. But these works aren’t destined for any particular social network or online space– they are for us, the makers in process; works of progress all.
While I’ll continue to sort out my thoughts on blogging and how I’d like to use this space, at this time I feel a certain gladness in creating content that isn’t immediately posted online, if ever. As we are increasingly absorbed as data and fed into the algorithms of big tech, engaging in making offline seems a thrilling way to reclaim oneself and, in part, our humanity. Perhaps a new horizon for our independence?
Citation: Redmond, T. (2021, July, 4). Independence. Retrieved from
