People are getting back from their holidays. I run into them at the supermarket. They tell me where they've been, and they ask about me. They understand, when I tell them about death in the family (my mother), that I probably haven't been having the best of summers. But it's when I try to explain the good parts of my summer that I get that blank stare from them...
"I've been out walking a lot," I say, "with my camera, taking lots of photos."
They smile expectantly, thinking of travelling and new exciting places.
"Nowhere in particular," say I. "In the parks, around town, in the neighbourhood..."
They stare. Sounds of silence creep up on us. I know it's pointless to go on. If I add the hours I've spent at the computer, trying to grasp the mysteries of photo editing software and blogging, they will just stare even more. There's no way, at least not in the crowd at the supermarket, that I can explain about magic moments with dragon flies in the park, exploring reflections in windows and polished stones, seeing "the Niagara falls" in the little dam we pass by every day, or going round and round every statue and sculpture in town looking for new angles.
"Who have you been seeing? Who have you been talking to?" they ask next. And I say well, I had lunch with A, and B stopped by last week, and I talked to C on the phone. That doesn't really cover much, but that's as far as our common ground supermarket language goes. That language does not have room for the experience of entering other worlds through the computer screen and communicating with people who aren't "really there". I can't casually say to these supermarket friends: Dan went to a car show recently and got to sell a lot of pictures. CJ spent the summer in the Hebrides with GB and took some fantastic photos. And oh, good news, Rae finally found a house!
I went home and sat down to meditate over how I came to live in two worlds.
("I am - you are" photo taken by me at an outdoor art exhibition. There was a whole row of these white stones, with the same words in different languages.)
8 comments:
I sort of expected to find a wordzzle since you signed the linksy. I did fin your blog entry to be interesting. We do live in a number of different worlds.
I think in many ways this is the artist's experience. So many people don't want to go deep into life but just want to skim along the surface. I will try to remember to tell Dr. John that he just needed to scroll down for your wordzzle which I am now off to read. Interesting photo/art piece.
Thanks Dr John, and my apologies for not adding the right link in Raven's Linksy. I have corrected it now.
I have the same problem! I also tend to talk about my blog friends' lives to my real-life friends. Which causes a lot of confusion for them.
People can be so narrow in their perception but life can be multi-layered for those of us who chose to live it that way. Why, after all, should we live in one dimension. My friends in Blogland are just as real as my friends who live in the the village.
And we so often ignore our immediate vicinity and search far and wide for the beauty which is to be found close at hand.
It's a funny old world.
As part of one of your worlds, I too find it difficult to explain to 'real' people that my blogging friends are actually as real - and in many cases even more important - as they are. They seem to think that anything on the computer is a sort of virtual world that exists more in my imagination!
As GB said - it's a funny old world - or should that be they are funny old worlds we live in.
Dawn Treader...you put your finger on it! I think we get to the point where we take the cyber world for granted. Where else would I have met and talk daily to a person from Sweden! How amazing is that??? I treasure my cyber friends and have learned so much from them.
Dan
Dr John, Raven, Rae, GB, Scriptor, Dan - glad you all stopped by to prove the point that you're "really there"! :D
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