ABOUT A BLOG

My daughter, a professional writer, commented to me about my blog.  She told me that blogs should not be about personal experiences but rather should be a way to inform others about a topic. She said, “You should not being writing a blog unless you are an authority on that subject. A blog should be professional  writing."

She has a degree in English from the University of Oklahoma, is a published author, has been a television director, producer, a magazine editor, a wife and mother of three,  her writing pays the bills each month.....she is definitely a professional and an authority on writing.

I felt stupid... I had been writing, telling stories I thought were funny, notable, talking about people, because I wanted them to be remembered....and to know now, it was wrong.  I find out I shouldn’t have written about those things...those people?  

I tried to think of something I knew more about than anyone else.  Nothing....I am just ordinary.  I have never been good enough at anything to have ever been an authority.  There are many things I would like to be an authority on....(and perhaps thought I was), but no...I never qualified.  

And my daughter, an authority, reading what I had written, how she must have laughed, no scoffed, at my stupidity.  At that point, I quit writing.  For two years every time I felt the urge to write...I just scribbled notes, knowing nothing was noteworthy, I was not an authority on anything.

 But as time went by, I started to think about the experiences I have had in my life, unique to only me.  Over the course of the past forty years I have worked as a buyer, a mother, a wife, an advocate for Parkinson’s Disease, a church staff coordinator, a teacher, a volunteer, a docent, and a curator of a museum. Museums.....all museums are authorities, telling a the history of something. One saying, common to museums is, “All history is local history.” That is true. Some local history becomes more famous or noteworthy than others, but it is all local at some point. Then I started thinking about stories. Stories like history, are all personal at some point.

People write books because they have a personal story in their heart that they, or someone has lived.  It has changed their life, made them look at things differently or altered the course they were on.  It happened to only them.  Sharing it made another person’s life better.

I thought about my father fighting in World War II,  all the stories he told, unique to him, the ones I heard and sadly, the ones that died with him. The realization that the man fighting beside him, experienced the same battle and had a story too. A totally different one, yet at the same place and same time.  How many times have I read a story, only to realize that someone else was like me, their feelings were the same as mine, though their lives and experiences  were so different.....but most importantly, that we had the same questions and same struggle.

One little tragic love story.....ROMEO AND JULIET....made someone else tell their tragic love story. Herman Melville told a story about a fish...MOBY DICK. Stephen Crane, about being afraid, A RED BADGE OF COURAGE. A little girl told the story about her tiny, limited little world in an attic.....THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK.  They all have one thing in common....when they told their story, my world was broadened by the  experience they shared. It was a personal story, that became a universal story.  It made me understand a new perspective I had not envisioned.  They wrote about their story because they had those experiences.  Most of us are authorities on only one thing....our personal journeys.   

My daughter is an authority on so many things, breastfeeding, natural childbirth, baby wearing, writing, television directing, production, magazine editing and more that I even don’t know about.  I will never have her knowledge or her experience at any of those things. She will always be smarter and have more experience than me. I respect her knowledge and her intelligence. I envy her success at such a young age. I am embarrassed to note, that at my age I have not achieved  authority about anything in particular.  I do wonder though....does wisdom ever trump authority?