My blogbuddy Steve posited the question today, 'why do you blog?' and I found myself going on and on, filling up his comment box. So I decided to carry the question onto this post.
Here's how I replied to Steve:
I live, therefore I blog. Can't help it, I've been a photo journalist for 30 years and blogging is just an extension of that pursuit. Good things happen in my life, lousy things happen, it's all grist for the blog. I get stuck with three months of drudgery a year when I'm producing our antique map guide, but I can vent and indulge my inner child with the blog.Also, I confess to enjoying having an audience, all five or six of you. I love you all. You are as much a part of my life as my face-to-face friends here in Mexico and everyone I'm close to back in the States. I have three friends living far away who read 1st Mate and care to keep up with my life. The rest drop in once in a while, but as Steve says, they don't really follow it (so he copies and pastes it into his emails, what a clever fellow!)
I used to keep journals, but when I moved to Mexico I had a two-foot stack of spiral-bound books, full of my life, that I couldn't take with me, couldn't burn, felt anxious about consigning to landfill...That's never a problem with a blog.
Besides, a blog is the perfect way to share images of astonishing and wonderful things, like this blue heron I met one day.
And I can pass along delights like this song (dedicated to JoMama). My friend Ale in Guaymas sent me this link: Chabuca Granda from Peru, singing "Fina Estampa." I love everything about it: the song, the singer's gentle, sweet voice, the way she moves and smiles with love of the music, the wonderful guitar licks. I'm not sure how the title translates but she is apparently singing about a caballero muy guapo.