"Why start a blog now?" someone asked me the other day. "The personal blog is dead, or at least dying." It's a good question, one to which I'm not sure I know the answer entirely, but which also finds its reflection in a friend, who is a student of, and lecturer on, technology and media, putting an end to her personal blog this past week.
I think it has to do with needing an outlet, one which may or may not have an audience, but which allows me to put my thoughts and ideas out where someone might see them. And even those posts which I don't immediately publish, because they need polishing or contain content that just would never tie in with anything I would ever want to be known about me, allow me the opportunity to learn more about myself, my surroundings, and my voice as a writer. On some level, the urge to blog now, as opposed to three or five years ago, is probably also related to the urge that led me, in my late teens and early twenties, to essay my hand at writing sonnets. I live in the times in which I live because I must, because some twist of fate placed me here, but I am not completely of these times. Some of it may come from being a chronological member of generation X, but one whose parents, unlike those of many of my peers, were not baby-boomers, and their parents were all born during the Victorian era. As a result, I sometimes feel as though I have a toehold in three different centuries.
The blog, therefore, is an attempt to bridge my nineteenth-century compulsion to write, my mid-twentieth-century yearning for structure and change, and twenty-first century technology.
As far as the title of my blog, it was something that occurred to me only at the instant of having to input it. I have always had the urge to travel (the proverbial "itchy foot"), but the circumstances of my life and finances have always conspired to limit my ability to do so. Combined with my having been a stay-at-home mother for the past decade, the lack of travel contributed to a raging case of cabin fever. Hence the name.
Despite the name, however, this i.s not strictly speaking a travel blog, although I have since moved to one of those places I always wanted to explore, and I have started work outside the home. I'm not one hundred-percent certain of what direction I will take this, but I can hazard a guess that it is at least as much about internal journeys and limitations as it will be about the literal.
I do find it odd, or perhaps serendipitous, that, while I have always wanted to travel but never been able to do so to the degree which I would prefer, that I have found a career in the hospitality industry. I actually fell into it when I was still young.
I was a student looking for a summer job, and I spotted a hiring ad in the campus newspaper (don't laugh, this was 1990) for a hotel that I had seen in a calendar picture and had always thought looked like a really interesting place. Since I did not want to go home and work in either of the family businesses, I typed up my resume and cover letter, and sent off my application. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, exactly, but on the basis of some previous cashier experience, I was hired to work at the front desk. My mother dropped me off at the beginning of June, and after a week, I was hooked. At that time, I thought hospitality would be a good way to earn my way through university, but I had no intentions of spending my life working in business.
Fast-forward two decades and five babies, and I found myself looking for opportunities outside of the home. After a fruitless attempt to find employment in the regular business world, I decided to return my focus to the industry in which I had found the most professional happiness. After a year spent at school gaining credentials to back up my experience, I launched myself back into the world of gainful employment. Three weeks after starting my new position, I can honestly say that I have come home. This is the work where my heart is, and I have the opportunity to travel vicariously through my conversations with guests.
I may not have left the cabin yet, but the windows are open and it feels like Spring. And that's a damn good feeling.
I think it has to do with needing an outlet, one which may or may not have an audience, but which allows me to put my thoughts and ideas out where someone might see them. And even those posts which I don't immediately publish, because they need polishing or contain content that just would never tie in with anything I would ever want to be known about me, allow me the opportunity to learn more about myself, my surroundings, and my voice as a writer. On some level, the urge to blog now, as opposed to three or five years ago, is probably also related to the urge that led me, in my late teens and early twenties, to essay my hand at writing sonnets. I live in the times in which I live because I must, because some twist of fate placed me here, but I am not completely of these times. Some of it may come from being a chronological member of generation X, but one whose parents, unlike those of many of my peers, were not baby-boomers, and their parents were all born during the Victorian era. As a result, I sometimes feel as though I have a toehold in three different centuries.
The blog, therefore, is an attempt to bridge my nineteenth-century compulsion to write, my mid-twentieth-century yearning for structure and change, and twenty-first century technology.
As far as the title of my blog, it was something that occurred to me only at the instant of having to input it. I have always had the urge to travel (the proverbial "itchy foot"), but the circumstances of my life and finances have always conspired to limit my ability to do so. Combined with my having been a stay-at-home mother for the past decade, the lack of travel contributed to a raging case of cabin fever. Hence the name.
Despite the name, however, this i.s not strictly speaking a travel blog, although I have since moved to one of those places I always wanted to explore, and I have started work outside the home. I'm not one hundred-percent certain of what direction I will take this, but I can hazard a guess that it is at least as much about internal journeys and limitations as it will be about the literal.
I do find it odd, or perhaps serendipitous, that, while I have always wanted to travel but never been able to do so to the degree which I would prefer, that I have found a career in the hospitality industry. I actually fell into it when I was still young.
I was a student looking for a summer job, and I spotted a hiring ad in the campus newspaper (don't laugh, this was 1990) for a hotel that I had seen in a calendar picture and had always thought looked like a really interesting place. Since I did not want to go home and work in either of the family businesses, I typed up my resume and cover letter, and sent off my application. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, exactly, but on the basis of some previous cashier experience, I was hired to work at the front desk. My mother dropped me off at the beginning of June, and after a week, I was hooked. At that time, I thought hospitality would be a good way to earn my way through university, but I had no intentions of spending my life working in business.
Fast-forward two decades and five babies, and I found myself looking for opportunities outside of the home. After a fruitless attempt to find employment in the regular business world, I decided to return my focus to the industry in which I had found the most professional happiness. After a year spent at school gaining credentials to back up my experience, I launched myself back into the world of gainful employment. Three weeks after starting my new position, I can honestly say that I have come home. This is the work where my heart is, and I have the opportunity to travel vicariously through my conversations with guests.
I may not have left the cabin yet, but the windows are open and it feels like Spring. And that's a damn good feeling.
