First Post, Pressure, Identity, and an Orange.

The hardest part about starting a new blog is deciding what to publish for the FIRST post. There is so much pressure behind firsts, that sometimes people (like myself naturally) avoid the potential at all costs. I find myself scribing in my mind and tossing ideas because nothing seems proper until the FIRST post is written. Questions mount: Who do I want to present myself as? Do I want to introduce myself first? Do I want a clever tagline? Do I want a perfectly designed page first? Do I have a clear idea or niche?  I hear one of my dearest writing professors (the prolific and influential Sarah Schulman) repeating rules I often break like: “Show, don’t tell” and I consider the magnitude of her body of work. Alas. Self-doubt mounts. The larger-than-wise Lao Tzu imparted: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” but no one told me how steep that step might be.

In the past I started blogs with rambling posts avoiding the creation of an identity, sort of an in media res stream of consciousness that suited my need to tell stories and share, but gave no focus or tone to my blog (other than some Freudian web-trip). I am also hyper-aware of the itch to tell-all-at-once-right-now, and have learned ‘if you build it they will come’ is the approach to the blogging world as well. When I became pregnant (a story which will take many installments) I took a hiatus from my personal blog (in need of a revamp) and started to reconsider my blog identity. I became insecure. Was I worth listening to? Are the things I share defined by the number of hits my blog gets? Should I build my proverbial ‘field of dreams’ even though there are tons of others blogs in my so-called niche? I knew the direction I wanted to go in but lacked the impetus, energy, and largely the self-esteem. The main deterrent, as for most of us, was/is fear. I know one way I have dealt with fear is through the ‘power in numbers’ concept—if I have support, or others who have ‘been there’ with me, I have a greater shot at moving forward. Thus the reason I so often turn to blogs (and Google as a whole).

Many steps led me to this moment, many of which I am quite conscious of, but the most compelling for me has to be Leo Babauta’s post “How to Start”. I imagined his first post experience and the many baby steps he took along the way. Then I had a Proustian moment that turned into a zen state of awe. I was peeling an orange while my baby nursed, and I experienced the story of how I got to that present. A series of epiphanies immersed in a breath of consciousness. I mindfully ate my orange, took in the essence of my baby girl and said to myself: “Today I will start.” My story begins here: in the place I fill with the never-ending IT.

So there you have it. A first post. A self-reflective mama. An internet addict. A sharer. A relatively literate, meditative, sometimes verbose storyteller, life experiencer, and a slew of other things I hope to show you along the way!