greetings cyberspace compatriots. as you see, i have returned to your world after a six week absence. there were several reasons (excuses) for my absence. not the least was that my cyber home had spiralled into a cyber hovel. my site of bloggy brilliance had become cluttered with loose writing, messy formatting and useless ornaments gathering dust on the shelf. and like a child that refuses to clean her room, i hid under the couch in denial of the inevitable task. i am not sure whether my cyber hovel began to reflect the state of my mind, or vice versa. in any case, the only way to deal with a cyber catastrophe is the get in there with a large rubbish bag and clean it up, and return my cyber hovel to a space that is inhabitable.
this is the end result. a calm, serene space in which to chronicle the final voyage of the rusting vessel that is my mind. This rusting vessel, by all accounts should be decommissioned in favour of a sleek, modern cruiser, but brain transplants are a miracle of the future so will i have to paddle along in my leaky boat the best i can. so i have tried to make this space a little calmer and a little more sympathetic to my needs.
let me take you on a brief tour. i used a new template, obviously. blogger minima. and improved it a little. the background testifies to my desire to be less tone deaf and more open to the harmonious in life. i would like to be able to call discordant noise for what it really is, instead of mistaking it for being modern and twentieth century. in the world of thought, there are few ideas that are beautiful and brilliant, and a dearth of ideas that range from mundane and irrelevant to just plain bad. i would like to be able to tell the difference.
the photo was taken recently by my friend bec, who has always inspired me with her ability to combine artistic creativity and expression with superb skill. she now lives in gippsland but came one evening with her two delightful children to do some shots of the brown family. this one my husband refers to as ‘pensive’. i will trust his judgment instead of my own. and i will resist the temptation to rename my blog ‘petra’s pensive ponderings’. too much, yes? in any case, it is a beautiful photo, thanks to my brilliant photographer friend, which perfectly reflects my desire for harmony and simplicity over disorder and complexity. needless to say, in real life, i never find myself floating, suspended in a pure white environment where the mysteries of the cosmos are revealed to me.
i have removed the space for comments and followers. literally, i don’t want other people speaking to me, messing up my pure space where i contemplate the mysteries of the cosmos. but more seriously, once i put in a link for comments, i suddenly began to write to please my imaginary audience, secretly desiring public appreciation and recognition in the form of a ‘comment’. no more! obviously i quite like people, i like writing, and i think the two can work together. so my email address is there for those who want to send me a message in a glass bottle across cyberspace. i promise i will respond – eventually. when my leaky boat pulls into port somewhere.
i have removed all capitals from my headings, labels, bloglinks etc. the weight of naming things began to weigh heavily on me. so in an act of defiance, this post is written without any capital letters! petra is living on the edge. in german, all nouns are capitalized. i am not sure if that was ever part of english, but it does testify to the power of naming things, of determining something is a noun – a solid, definable object. a thing we grasp, control and manipulate to our own ends. verbs on the other hand speak of action and movement. they are things we do, embody, enact. therefore, we are more involved, less able to stand back and pretend to illusions of control. so consider this blog the attempt of a perfectionist and control freak to let go and live like a verb, not a noun. in a purely abstract cyber way, where the design and implementation of this blog was thought out to the last detail, and each post is a carefully spell-checked and grammar corrected master piece. but apart from those small things, the new me is all for spontaneity!
and yes, you are right. while i can live without capitals, i cannot live without full stops, or the occasional exclamation mark. i cannot escape my need for order and structure. commas are no problem, they signify the moment to breathe. and we all need to breathe, breathing is human. if i could live my life with verbs and commas i would probably be a well balanced human being. to satisfy those mortals who can only live with the illusion of naming things, capitals will return in my next post.
so that concludes the first post in my refurbished cyberspace monastery. the renovation is not yet complete, some links i have to work on, one long weekend. and already i am displeased by the clutter of these letters on the page. i suspect i have once again missed the harmonious, generally found only in the company of silence, and have fallen into the trap of the discordant – the noise of my own voice, words and writing. so farewell landlubbers. i return to the still waters in my leaky boat to contemplate the mysteries of the universe. i will see you when i return to shore.
