:: :: oh dear, oh dear :: ::

where, oh where has my little blog gone? oh where, or where can it be?

i can't even begin to explain how sad i am that my blog is gone. i've been running that blog since 2006. it has documented my pregnancy, the birth of my first child, my postpartum depression, my decision to stop working on my dissertation in english, our efforts to move home to new york, my work at building a shop.

i think i still have the post data somewhere on my server, which is the partially good news. i'm just not sure it's retrievable in any reasonable way.

one of my favorite writers, maxine hong kingston, once lost an entire manuscript -- i think it was 500 pages -- in a fire; she had to sit down to entirely rewrite the manuscript from memory. i always admired that so much, and thought how hard it would be to continue on with the same story. i think i would have just started fresh with something new.

now here i am wondering how on earth i could ever possibly recreate my own past. i just couldn't. how could i recapture what i was feeling those first days after evan's birth? or during those days of anxiety when i was gripped tightly in the fists of my depression?

anyone who doesn't think a blog is an important document -- who thinks that it is just some kind of random daily rambling, which it may well be -- is so wrong. i can't believe there were moments when i considered just deleting my blog forever because not enough people were reading it. as if a blog is about its readers and not about the amazing way it frames and reframes your life every single time you post. the way it documents not just events and feelings but frames of mind, perspectives...

if you don't have a blog perhaps you will consider starting one today in honor of my gone blog. and leave me a comment with a link if you do.