If I were still on WordPress, I would leap right into the list, but since I’m in a new place with new people and new ethos, I should say right away that none of this has anything to do with growth or optimization. Nor does it have anything to do with whether or not it was “worth it” in an Eat, Pray, Love sort of way. Clearly it has been.
My readers have collaborated with me and uplifted me through houselessness, prison, my husband’s funeral, health issue after health issue, job issue after job issue, new love, new artistic inclinations, and failure after failure, and win after win. They have become friends, loves, people I’ve never met whose children I can recognize by name or antic, and people who now just meander into my house and fix themselves a cup of tea.
This month, Rarasaur blog turned 13 years old. It has saved me, over and over, and we know that, and this is not what the list is about either.
It’s about what the practice of writing so regularly about me, taught me about me.
When I began blogging, I used a lot of community prompts, and so many had to do with music. I don’t have a mood-shifting relationship with sound. I don’t have cravings for it, and my skin doesn’t itch in its absence. I have always loved reading about how music comes into y’alls life and scoops you up. How your hearts live somewhere beneath the staff, like its a ribcage of your choosing.
I don’t have that experience, but after writing thousands and thousands of posts, I realize that it is food that does that same for me. It calls me home. It calls me away. It brings me to a feeling and leaves me there, or guides me to the next one.
I have so many posts featuring heirloom tomatoes, and butter, and grains of rice, and handfuls of dough. I un-salt the earth, and my memories, and yesterday, and tomorrow. I simple syrup every prayer.
Why else would I keep choosing them after telling myself over and over again to use better ones? If your title says what it’s about, then people can find it better. And as years go on, and more writing happens, you yourself also will be able to find it better. The titles on my old blog were part of the reason I moved over here. For a fresh start that made it possible for people to find old work.
As I write this section, I’m switching the subtitle and title, so the big text is no longer “The baker naval gazes into the dozen” because I’m quite convincing right now. I will absolutely forget next time, and the next.
A friend of mine once called this titling practice my writing accent. I like that.
My style is not for everyone and the eye rolls were so much louder than anything else in my life, for a long time. It took so many comments, texts, and in-person hugs, to really recalibrate my understanding of my own work. It took reframing my worldview. It took people tattooing my words on them, pulling them out of larger rambles. It took people carrying my books around. It took time.
I still think of those who read my blog as my best beloveds first, because they are people who gift time to my inner thoughts, and I know more than most what a complex and loving gift time is. I still cannot conceptualize my best beloveds as subscribers or followers.
The subscription does not matter to them: they literally found me again in prison. The following makes no sense: we aren’t going anywhere but together.
And readers always felt like a thing that only existed for a certain type of person. For example, we all have audiences. When we talk or exist around anyone anywhere, we have an audience. But that’s just not the word we use except for very case-specific situations.
This year, someone introduced themselves to my friends as a long-time reader of Rarasaur blog. And it felt so true to them, so tangible, that I caught it in the air between us and pressed it into my heart, and made an imprint.
Thirteen years. Anywhere from 1 to 50,000 best beloveds at a time. Millions and millions of words typed out in the universe. Blog awards. Literal books printed. And it finally hit me that of course someone might call themselves a reader of mine— because I am a writer. A writer whose readers are so very, visibly beloved to them.
The following is what happens inside my brain when people tell me “If each subscriber gave you $1”…
If 19,000 people bought me a cup of coffee on Ko-Fi, I wouldn’t have to work for a year. If 19,000 people gave me a single sock, I wonder how many matching pairs we’d find. If 19,000 people gave a book from their collection, I’d have to buy a new shelf. If 19,000 people said my name all at the same time, the world would get a little heavy with it and I might even hear it all the way here where the ocean gulps up sound. If 19,000 people wrote a blog post, and we strung them together like a collage, we could call it something. We could name it something that hasn’t been seen before. We could make a website where you scroll through the journey of it, watch it telephone into 19,000 beautiful lives.
If 19,000 people give me 3 minutes every year— the average length of my posts— then people will have spent over 950 hours every year reading about me. Listening to me. Mourning my husband with me. Reflecting on freedom with me.
How do I pay that back? A blessing like that is supposed to flow through, not be collected.
How do I make sure I stay porous?
I’m not afraid to get started. To do a thing. To have a bad idea. To flop. To fail. To fail fast, or even faster than others. I think this is probably more curiosity than bravery, but it amounts to courage in the end, and I’m glad for that.
I’m always braver with company, so I’m glad for you, too.
Thank you for 13 years.
I updated the about page with pictures of my face and the area around me because I couldn’t delete the page and that seemed like a fun compromise. https://rarasaur.substack.com/about
I added a “By Topic” page so you could browse that way. https://rarasaur.substack.com/p/by-topic
This is a post where I am adamant and hopeful that the brain issues will turn out alright: https://rarasaur.substack.com/p/brain-damage-is-curious
This is a post where I’m shocked/mopey that the brain issues turned out alright: https://rarasaur.substack.com/p/i-dont-know-what-to-do-with-all-this
This is a post where I realize that Dave is dead-dead, like actually gone (which in retrospect is likely because the brain issues forced the issue):
This is about putting our hands into the earth and the world we want to make, even though the worms are afoot: https://rarasaur.substack.com/p/worm-hands
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.