"Hark, the Herald Pygmies Sing"

It has been said Christmas in the Pacific Northwest is a gift wrapped in green. Although we’re blessed here with an abundance of fir trees and evergreens, many of us still dream about a Christmas of white. More often than not, however, we get a Christmas of just plain wet. So it was one Christmas Day a few years back.

Although wet, our Christmases here are as merry as the white variety and this particular wet Christmas for me had been a day spent with family and friends. As far as I knew all the gifts had already been given and unwrapped, and all the festivities had come to a close. But I hadn’t anticipated the festivities waiting for me back home.

The automatic light flipped on as we pulled into the driveway, adding to the glow from a thousand colored lights lining the house. Although home looked inviting in the dark and stormy night, the short trip from car to backdoor seemed a daunting task. I tucked my head under my coat and made a run for it.

A small herd of pygmy goats, about a dozen of my own and another dozen or two of my housemate’s, live in a simple wood barn tucked behind the house. They often greet anyone who approaches with a bleating chorus, half to greet and half to scold for being away. It was dark, it was wet, and the goats had missed their Christmas dinner. So their scolds that evening fell especially harsh. I had intended to ignore their complaints for the moment. Once inside I could don more fitting apparel and tend to the goats’ holiday feast. But during that particular moment in the rain, I just wanted to get indoors.

“Did you hear that?”

Of course I could hear it, anyone who didn’t hear the cater-wailing goat chorus should have been pronounced deaf.

“When is Bree due?”

“Next month.”

I felt a little irritated by what seemed an irrelevant question. Bree was one of my pregnant does and I knew she had a good three weeks to go before kidding. At the moment I was too wet and too cold to entertain any other possibilities. But suddenly from underneath the steady drone of the goat chorus I could hear smaller voices, higher pitched and more staccato. Everything I had been carrying landed on the back porch and I made a dash for the barn.

Two tiny figures dimly reflected the lights from the porch and the colored decorations as they maneuvered through the deep mud just outside the barn door. A row of curious white noses watched from inside the barn. Once I managed the presence of mind to plug in the barn light, Bree could be seen standing in the rain, shaking and uncertain. Two newborns circled her, very dirty and very wet.

I scooped up the babies and put them inside my coat, calling for towels. As if she hadn’t been agitated enough before, now their mother ran in hysterical circles. Unable to see her babies, she became blind to the rain and the mud. I held my coat tight around the two newborn kids and fought their mother until I had securely latched us all inside the barn.

I held the babies close to my body, sitting on the barn floor wet and muddy, rocking them and hoping to make up for their neglected birth. They struggled against being held at first, calling back and forth with their mother, but eventually became content in their warm new nest. Their mother remained worried and kept a close eye on me, but eventually accepted the new arrangement. I stayed with them through the rest of the evening to make sure the little boy and little girl were dry and nursing.

In ancient times a certain famous baby’s birth was announced by a chorus of angels. He was born in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lay in a manger. He was attended by three wise men. In my Christmas reenactment many years later, two baby goats were announced by a chorus of pygmy goats, wrapped in a swaddling coat and visited by a not-so-wise man who now pays closer attention to breeding dates.

For some, Christmas may be a gift wrapped up in white and for others Christmas is a gift wrapped up in green. That year, for me, Christmas was a gift wrapped up in mud.

What Are You Bringing to the Table?

Somewhere in the course of every family gathering I experienced as a child, my dad would tell a story.

My dad's stories were all true, or at least started out being true, and were usually about something you wouldn't necessarily expect to be funny. Nevertheless, he would always bring his audience to tears of laughter.

It was all in the way he told his stories.

My dad was big on visual aids, so he had to stand and use a lot of exaggerated hand gestures to illustrate his tale. My favorite part was how he would act out the reactions of his various characters. Dad might have made a great comedian.

Our family gatherings just wouldn't have been the same without my dad and one of his stories.

Every gathering is like a tapestry. It is woven in a combination of colors which cannot be duplicated anywhere else. If any one person is added or removed from the gathering, the tapestry will be changed.

For many, the holidays are a time for gatherings. They might be with friends, co-workers, or family, but at every gathering each person brings their unique contribution to the table.

But what if instead of being themselves, each person studied a manual and followed some formula for being "A Person At a Party" or how to converse at a party?

The tapestry would be a dull beige.

My last post discussed how information is a commodity and how information-based blogging might put a blogger out of business.

"Bloggers whose blogs offer commodity information diminish their brand, turning themselves into information middlemen."

While there is nothing wrong with blog posts which offer information, information is not all that makes a blog valuable. If an informative post is left at the commodity level, then the blog and the blogger move into the background. Your visitors will come, go, and forget you; only a nucleus of visitors will remain. But if we bring our unique qualities to the table, our posts and our blogs can never be a commodity.

What are you bringing to the table?

Let's All Share Some SPAM For The Holidays

The holidays are a time to gather at the table sharing fellowship, fun and of course, food. However, in the blogosphere we seldom find opportunity to gather in a similar fashion.

So I thought it might be fitting for the season to invite those of you who pass this way to share one of the most frequently consumed dishes of bloggers worldwide.

Of course I am speaking of that manna of the blogosphere, that ever popular and prolific web-based dish, SPAM.

What's that you say? You don't really care for SPAM, that little gift left on your doorstep by so many of your blog visitors? Possibly you simply haven't yet developed a taste for it.

SPAM is, of course, an acquired taste. Ever wishing to be helpful, I will endeavor to help you develop an appreciation for these tasty little morsels.

Here are four reasons you could like or at least appreciate SPAM:

1. People (and machines!) sometimes leave SPAM in an effort to be friendly or just plain helpful.

SPAM informs me of places I can do such useful things as getting rich and provides me with a long list of with helpful links to get me there. Realizing I might not yet be rich enough to pay cash for necesseties like cars, boats and homes, many thoughtful spammers leave comments about where I can obtain instant credit, possibly without a credit check!

Sometimes SPAM simply extends a hand in friendship:

"Yo,

I’m Anna, I’m 32 old, I work in a medicalised french rest house. it’s great to share with you and I’d would like to talk in english

cheers,

Anna :: maison de retraite"

Some spammers attempt to be both friendly AND helpful:

"very nice, have a good day, buy botox"

From time to time SPAM might at first appear offensive, maybe offering links where one might find sexual gratification. But if we remind ourselves SPAM is just a way to reach out and touch someone, such offerings come back into perspective.

2. SPAM can be good for your ego.

Spammers freqently comment on the wisdom behind my posts and the brilliance of my blog in general. This really helps when I feel down in the dumps. Often these spammers tell me they are going to bookmark or subscribe to my blog and tell all their friends to do the same:

"I like this place very much. This is such a extraordinary web. And it is not like other money directed place, the information here is very important. I am definitely bookmarking it as well as sharin it with my friends."

Evidently they do tell their friends and their friends are just as generous because the amount of SPAM I receive seems to grow exponentially!

3. SPAM offers a way for you to give something back.

Often spammers simply wish to tap my brain (understandably, since they have already expressed their admiration for my mental powers). I receive numerous tidbits of SPAM asking where the best cell phone rates might be obtained, or simply:

"…please where can I buy a unicorn?"

4. SPAM opens doors to communication.

Now I must admit, occasionally I do receive a bit of SPAM which I don't fully understand. Some of it seems to be written in some other language and it saddens me I can't enjoy it fully. Other spammers seem to exist on an entirely different plain than myself, yet I am happy they have decided to share:

"I stand here today humbled by the task before dofus kamas, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our cheap dofus kamas. I thank President dofus power leveling for his service to buy dofus kamas, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition."

I wonder what or who dofus kamas is . . .

So come. Gather 'round the table and, in the spirit of this season, let's share some of those tasty SPAM morsels which have blessed our blogging doorsteps.

You may leave your dish in the comments here; think of it as a holiday pot luck.

What's It All About, [INSERT YOUR NAME HERE]?

December is an excellent time for retrospective blog posts. It must be, since so many bloggers do "Best Of" and "Looking Back" posts in December. So who am I to swim against the tide?

Actually, looking back through the year's posts can be an informative process for any blogger. And this seems like an excellent place to insert (again!) one of my favorite quotes, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci:

Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.

Well, I found this exercise a great way to actually find harmony and proportion but it's still a great quote.

In a moment of desperately trying to think of a posting topic, I probably would have gotten around to a retrospective post sometime this month anyway, but Joanna Young got me thinking about the whole thing a little early, and a little less desperately, by announcing her group writing project, "Essential Lines From 2009" (and I just realized her title rhymes; how cool is that?).

Before you say to yourself, "P-shaw," and dismiss the entire thing, I want to stress how totally valuable this exercise was for me. And doing it yourself could be similarly valuable for you.

Why? Because looking over a year of your own posts gives you a great sense of perspective. Remember the Emerson quote I just quoted (again!) yesterday?

Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

Looking over a year of my own posts reminded me why I blog and prompted me back to a path I had somewhat strayed from. (And yes, that path allows me to write incredibly awkward sentences like that last one, without going back to judge and fix it.)

Now, you might be totally confused if you remember the blog you're reading right now is totally new. But you must also remember it is pre-populated with posts from where I was previously blogging.

So anyway, in Joanna's exercise we're supposed to select our "essential" post for 2009. You know, the one that defines our blog, us, and the entire universe. It is also supposed to have a few catchy lines in it so Joanna can include them in a summary post of the participants' essential posts.

At first I thought I'd use my personal essay, "Do Not Go Gentle." It says much about what went on in my life over the last year or so, and it says a lot about me as a person. But after thinking a bit, it doesn't really define my blog.

That took me back to a post I view as a turning point in my life as a blogger, "Removing the Stick From Up My Ass." Aside from the fact this post brought in a disturbing amount of search engine traffic from people searching for the keywords "stick up my ass," this post gave birth to a style of blogging I continually try to revisit. It was where I realized the power of blogging in a transparent style.

That post became the first in an inadvertent series of 10 posts modeling that transparent style and really defining who I want to be as a blogger.

Here is the entire series, in case you are feeling exceptionally curious or stalkerly:

1. Removing the Stick From Up My Ass
2. Blogging So It Doesn't Suck
3. Beautiful Statues, Clever Horses, and Letting the Crap Fly
4. My Point, And I Do Have One Ellen
5. The Nagging Little Critic and The Cherokee Wolf Legend
6. It's Messy When You Should All Over Yourself
7. Rampant Creativity and Capitalistic Tinkering Patterns
8. Stream of Consciousness Shamrocks
9. God, What Could I Actually Call This Post?
10. Three Ways to Make Your Inner Critic Neurotic

But for Joanna's exercise, I had to pick one post. So I have chosen the third in this series, "Beautiful Statues, Clever Horses, and Letting the Crap Fly." I chose it largely for these two quotes, which summarize a theme within the series:

There are so many subtle ways we can censor and censure ourselves. We don't need to be afraid to let the occasional "crap" fly when it needs to.

It also contains this trinket of wisdom:

If you just do what other people want you to do, you might end up as glue or working with puppets.

If you've ever wondered just what the Pygmalion Effect was, go read this post right now! Or if not, why don't you just go read it anyway? If nothing else you'll learn the wisdom behind my glue and puppets quote.

So thank you, Joanna. This is a powerful exercise and just what I needed right now.

Gee, maybe there really is such a thing as serendipity.

Image: Dendroica cerulea

Aren't We All Flying By The Seat of Our Pants?

Sometimes we struggle to find our place in this world. We search for our identities, seeking to define ourselves or asking others to define us. We are comfortable when things, people and ourselves come with tidy labels.

"What do you do?" has become a deeper question than "How do you do?"

I have often been a participant in this angst of our age, searching for this elusive label, the one I expect to both define and fulfill me, and announcing I've found it seconds before a different possible label occurs to me.

Leonardo da Vinci is attributed with this quote:

Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.

An old proverb tells us hindsight is 20/20. Perhaps we can gain perspective on "who" and "what" we are by stepping back and noticing who and where we've been in our lives.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said:

Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

I've often struggled to find a label for my blogging, seeking to find my "place" on the web. I've tried several identities but often felt like someone fitting a square peg in a round hole. But a little hindsight tells me, perhaps it is enough for my online identity to simply be "someone who happens to blog." After all, that is what I've inadvertently been doing all the time I've been searching for an online identity. The simplest definition of a blog is that it's a log which happens to be on the web. My various posts under the various hats I've tried to wear create the cumulative effect of providing a web log, documenting the process.

Am I comfortable with standing on a soapbox and proclaiming this documentation process as blogging's highest call? I think so.

Instructional blogs abound, bloggers attempting to position themselves as authorities on a variety of subjects, but few are willing to step out from behind that authoritative voice.

In one of my favorite books, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, Michael Gerber points out that most of us really don't know what we're doing. We're all flying by the seat of our pants and hoping nobody else figures that out.

So I'm telling you right now, I'm flying by the seat of my pants. Are you?

That's one reason I'm starting this new blog. Oh I know, I've started others before. I can't promise this one won't be a flash in the pan like all the others but I do think I'm starting this one a little more informed than I have been in the past.

Sorry if you're confused, but this is a new blog; I've simply imported the posts I've written in other places.

I find that blogging comes naturally to me. I've always logged my experiences in one way or another. I used to think I was meant to be a teacher, but really it's always been more about sharing than teaching. I'm not very interested in breaking things down into a pedagogical sequence, but I do like to share things I've learned or things I'm excited about.

I guess that's why I write, why I've started painting, and why I'm interested in so many creative means of expression. And I guess that's why I'm a blogger.

I think that label suits me, at least for today.

Image: Gail S