Cassandra's Blog Day

Today is the 21st anniversary of starting this blog, and it's also the spring equinox...seeing the snow that fell overnight, I'm tempted to contemplate spring rather than the reasons why I continue to keep this space. However, looking up at these objects on my desktop, all of which represent parts of my writing journey, a few words come to mind.

With all the changes that have happened during the last two decades, both in my personal life and in our world, The Cassandra Pages has always felt like home. My home, as a space for working out my own thoughts, but also a place of hospitality where I could open the doors and welcome you, my readers and friends. In that respect, it's very much like an extension of the home that we all carry inside ourselves throughout life. That indestructible home continues in spite of physical displacement, changes in our life situation and in our bodies, the loss of people dear to us, pain and suffering as well as joy, changes in society and the world. And it provides a ground and a center for that private awareness of ourselves moving inexorably through time: shedding, learning, pondering, understanding, letting go. I'm not who I was 21 years ago, and I'm also the same person. It's a mystery, and also utterly natural, even if it's difficult to understand or put into words.

Writing this blog has helped me follow myself and the world more consciously and more intentionally, and, unlike a journal, it's been a way to do that in company. The rewards have been friendship, and also the sense that I've sometimes been able to give something meaningful or helpful. The longer and more reflective blog form has always felt more suitable for me than social media, and now, with more than a decade of the latter having altered society and our own lives in innumerable ways, I feel this even more strongly. I've become weary of superficiality, speed, insincerity, egotism and hypocrisy. We need to create and gravitate toward spaces that are supportive of not only who we are, but who we most want to be.

So, I'm still here. Thank you for being with me.

Comments

[Blork]

Congratulations on 21 years of writing/blogging! It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. The years really do be shorter the more we progress through them. I’m glad you’ve kept at it and I look forward to seeing more!

[Jonathan Sa'adah]

Doing anything for twenty one years is a big accomplishment, but I wonder what the total for the cassandrapages is in words and number of posts! I doubt you have a way of telling, but if you do please add pictures and artwork into the totals too! I think it would be astounding, considering that each piece meant something at the time it was posted and almost always the meaning has persisted. It's a mega accomplishment!

[Sharyn]

Hi Beth, I'm glad you're still writing here. I have a few blogs that I have saved to read but many have stopped, gotten tired of it, couldn't make money at it.

I wonder why you decided to move to a high rise. It seems like it would be convenient and easy to leave if you want to travel (with a cat sitter) but removed from nature. This morning it is 19F here, windy and the power is out. We can start the generator if it goes on too long so I can imagine living somewhere the maintenance is someone else's (younger) problem. Still, I have a wide view of the mountains and the flood plain forest below our house and it is peaceful except the howling wind.

And we have to put the plow back on the truck for the storm coming in this weekend.

[Andrea Murphy]

Happy 21st anniversary to Cassandra pages! I really appreciate what you do here. xo

[Huw]

Beth, thank you for continuing to share this space with us. As you say, identity and aging are curious things: I was recently looking at a photo of myself from University, 29 years ago, and it was both no time at all and a lifetime. It’s good to keep threads going, to remind us of where we’ve been, where we are, and where we might go. Making peace with that is important, I think.

Best wishes,
Huw

(And I still choose my reading with half an eye to the end-of-year lists we share here!)

[Carolee]

long live the poetry blogs!

[am]

Grateful for your many years of blogging.

I'm wondering who created the lovely macrame.

[Roderick Robinson]

As to social media I signed up to Facebook about ten years ago then wiped out all traces of myself twenty minutes later. For various reasons but primarily I felt I was under its control. Blogging, on the other hand, is anything one wants it to be. I started out devoted to science, engineering and technology, feeling these fields were undervalued. Quixotically switched solely to music (blogonym: Lorenzo da Ponte) but found I lacked the necessary technical foundations. Then became more generalised under the carelessly chosen blogonym Tone Deaf which came back to haunt me when I took up, weekly singing lesson seven years ago.

Cassandra Pages and its ship's master have always been an important influence on my blogging. Predominantly with regard to music (I came close to tears when B decided to leave the cathedral choir; once - via a complicated route - I'd actually seen and heard her sing). But also in re. verse-writing when I was unexpectedly tempted to tackle the Annunciation. And I received encouragement with my fiction when I admitted to the world at large I discovered I wrote more freely about women rathen than men. Many many thanks.

[Beth]

Thank you, Robbie, for these kind words and for being a blogging companion for a long time now. In the past year or two, especially, I've found you quite inspiring as you've navigated difficulties with courage, grace, and humor. May I do the same, when that time comes in my own life! I agree so much with your comments on social media vs blogging. I don't want to be controlled by any commercial platform, and frankly I don't want to be brought down by the superficiality, smallness, and inanity of so much that goes on there. I do appreciate the community of creative friends I've found on Instagram, but the constant ads are a huge annoyance. For me, that platform is for images only, not writing, and the blog continues to be where I put (less frequently these days) my thoughts.

The music thing isn't entirely resolved for me. I attended all the Holy Week services as a parishioner and truly enjoyed the high-quality music that was offered by my (former) choir -- the final one, on Easter Evensong, was Benjamin Britten's cantata "Rejoice in the Lamb" with its weird and wonderful text by Christopher Smart -- a piece I've sung many times. I was also glad not to be exhausted by the marathon of rehearsals and services. I'm playing the piano a good deal and practicing fairly seriously, but I do miss singing. We shall see what happens over the next year!