The Digital Fridge Door: Trying to ...

... get back to normal

or, "To add graceful narrative to the humble things and events of the every day"

A List Apart's Ten Tips on Writing the Living Web and
Doug Johnson's "So you wanna start a blog?"

Okay, not to get overly-cerebral or anything here, but for some time I’ve been mulling over these two blog posts that asked bloggers to consider why they blog, that their blogs should have a purpose. I like Doug’s comment ... "Or is it an ego thing, where you’re going to post idle thoughts as you feel like it?..."

Uh, well, ummmm, yeahhhh. So what if it is?

I know my past few months have been filled with the distractions of the flood, overworking or Jan (of course, some distractions are far more worthwhile, fulfilling and fun than others), and my posts have been less of what I’d intended them to be.

Oh well.

So, here:

The Fridge Door
In some ways, things that get posted on the fridge door really are trivial – the receipt that tells you when your DVD rental is due, the local library schedule, purple stuffed bunnies with magnetic limbs. But, really, the fridge is at the center of the hub of the household, the center of the kitchen. So, while what goes up may be temporary, I’d say that these things do hold some importance or significance – there’s some reason why it goes up, and why stays up there for a while. It holds some importance, even if for a brief moment. You want to take the pulse of a household? Go check the fridge door. I recently had to remove all the stuff from my fridge door for the kitchen demolition. The dust is still a few weeks away from settling, so I haven’t put much back up (and PurpleBunny is here in my office) and that really seems to amplify the unfinished, dusty, new-but-empty quality of my kitchen right now. The little pieces that bring comfort, motivation, or just a bit of whimsy, or perhaps the receipts that help keep us on-track, really reflect the personality and mood and heart of the household.

But, that’s not the point here. Some terrapin out there is thinking, “OMG. So many words! And she’s not done yet!”

[Yeah, you thought it. Admit it.]

I s’pose that the Digital Fridge Door was born out of a desire to keep the Gang of Four up with what’s going on with me, in pictures, doodles and words, and to let a little more of the world in on all this sniggering. But, truth be told, I’d wanted to have an excuse to write more, to add a graceful narrative to the humble things of every day. As I worked through the words, knowing that I’d be sharing them, I’d found that these stories started to flow with a gentle cadence, a sense of ease, and, in addition, that working through the words and paragraphs really helped to focus my thoughts for the rest of the day (in spite of the distraction of spending all this time thinking through all the words for the blog). It brought a bit of calm and focus into my days.

And, on top of it all, of course, there’s value in the designer that can tell a compelling story. One can relay ideas in drawings and photographs, but the words; the words help to set a tone, mood, tempo. In the past few months, I had gotten away from playing with words, and I can see now how much I’ve missed that. As it turns out, I have a little more free time again and am back to focusing on, among other things, TheFridgeDoor. I’ll be teaching a class as well; something that will require reading, writing, and focusing thoughts on weekly topics. The reading is good, fun stuff, and I imagine that the discussions and anecdotes that come from my students… it’ll all is be good fuel to inspire the crafting of thoughtful stories. So, I’m looking forward to getting back to that.

... And with that, I'm going to move PurpleBunny from where's he's been stuck, climbing onto my filing cabinet, back to the FridgeDoor, even if for a few more weeks, until the rest of the kitchen work resumes.

Stay tuned.