C: Dining with Sandra

Once again our blogging friend from Add Humor and Faith…Mix Well came through our town last Thursday.  V, MIL and I picked her up at the motel and spent the evening over dinner, laughing and sharing stories—just four bloggers out on the town.

The restaurant we visited has a replica of something V and I both vividly remember from our childhood half a century (egads!) ago…Laughing Sally.  

Sally was a mechanical doll (a bit larger than life-sized) who shook and laughed over and over and over.  She was displayed behind glass at the amusement park attached to our Zoo.  V and I shared the same childhood mixture of horror and attraction when it came to Sally.  Whenever we were fortunate enough to con our parents into going to “the rides,” (2 ride limits, for they were a quarter apiece), a visit to stand staring at Sally  in nervous fascination was required. 

But, back to our dinner:  Sandra is exactly as V and I have grown to know her through her blog and her comments . You may recall that last year when we first met personally, my mother was having a fit worried that Sandra just might be an axe murderer, disguising herself as a harmless b logger.  Well, she left her axe home again this year and we had a wonderful time.

Sandra is an excellent writer, as those of you who read her know.  If you don’t you’d do well to run by and check her out.  She, like us, is “ordinary, middle America” (sorry, Sandra), just making  it through life like the rest of us.  She, like you and me, has her daily grind, her challenges, and her worries about children.  The difference?  Well, Sandra doesn’t just live her life, she writes about life…and that, folks, is a function of her being, also, “extraordinary!”  (ah, yes, paradox)  And, here I go overthinking, yet again…

I sometimes find a commenter or a post on someone’s blog saying something like: “I don’t have an interesting life to write about,” and I’m here to tell you that is just not true.   I think the difference between non-bloggers and bloggers is not so much that we bloggers have interesting content in our lives, but that we see the interesting aspects of life and are willing to share about it.  No, maybe, we’re driven to share about it!  I notice that Sandra is still posting, although she’s in a motel, on a trip away from home.  Love it!

But reuniting with Sandra this year was wonderful.  It felt like old friends coming together again after an extended separation, catching up on news, enjoying one another’s company.  We were just all plain glad to see each other!

And the difference a year makes?  Well, I think I’m in a “better place” emotionally than I was last year, and I noticed Sandra looked great, apparently having shed a few pounds while I have packed them on…rats! (We’ll just call my poundage an outward side of inner healing—although I must do something…).

But, all that to say this:  Thanks, all you “ordinary” bloggers, for sharing your lives.  They enrich those of us who read them.  And, having overthought this thing, I’ll add: maybe it’s the sharing that turns the “ordinary” into the “extraordinary!”  It makes us special.

So, those of you who hesitate—we’re interested in your day-to-day life.  We relate to it, we learn from it.  Sharing about it turns the “ordinary” into the “extraordinary.” 

C