On diaries and diarists

As a reflective kinda coyote, I understand the journal keeping impulse. Kept one, on and off, myself, for dog's years...

Yet as one who is also somewhat retiring, I don't think I am able to fully appreciate why so many people blog their innermost thoughts on this internet thingy. I prefer to keep my innermost thoughts innermost, rather than inter-most. Posting some of the things our Muse has written in the past takes a certain kind of courage, and her candour has occasionally left me breathless.

'Course, some would say that with a dog's breath, that's an improvement... oh, nertz! As usual, I digress before I get to the heart of the thing. We semimythical, animistic, shamanistic dogs have attention-span issues...

What I started to say was that in my experiences with journals and diaries, many, if not all, seem to be written in a spirit of self-exploration. Stated bluntly, diarists flow most when issues abrade 'em, and ebb again when things smooth out. Human nature. The sincerer sort of diaries and journals are attempts to work out that most vexing of problems -- "What the f*** makes me tick? How do I fit into all of this?!". Certainly, her epic struggle with He Whose Initial Shall Nevermore be Blogged (HWISNBB? Oh, crap, it's more convenient to keep calling him 'M'...) was a case in point.

Agatha, always perceptive, and sometimes eerily prescient, has said more than once that the Muse cannot stay away from blogging, and the Muse's own recent behaviour now lends proof. I note that her three-month hiatus from her site approximately coincides with what relationship mavens say is the average 'honeymoon period' of 90-odd days -- that blessed period when everything is viewed from atop a pink cloud of bliss. After that, one begins to settle toward a more realistic perspective.

Now, notwithstanding the fact that our girl was marrying, moving house and wrapping up a thesis, and doing, uh, all sortsa other stuff during that time (and congratulations to her, by the way), I'm sure that there was a honeymoon happening. R sounds like a decent sort -- whatever scurrilous things the Dwarf and Chair may impute. (We do have an image as unconscionably rude pranksters to preserve, don't we?)

But I'm thinking that now that all of this is out of the way, she's reflecting again. She is of that nature. Now, she says that R. isn't fully comfortable with her blog, and has asked for some privacy. If there were any relationship issues, we'd likely not hear them, and I'm okay with that. The man stated his wish, and one respects that. But she can't not write somewhere, and I don't have a sense that she journals offline. Sooo, gratitude, happiness and Top Ten 'I Love You' lists aside, I'm wondering what our Muse is really thinking about these days. I await with interest the unfolding of her full reasons for surfing back into the domaigne publick...

(Image: Mills 1983, Creative Commons)