This was a thread on my fediverse account, that grew too long.
Posting it here, all together, the way my thoughts spilled out.
All I knew about Mandy Brown when I began following her a year ago is
- she has a doggie called Furiosa
- she thinks about books the way I do
- she reads books and then writes about reading them, the way I always dreamed I could
- she’s a prominent member of my circle of the Eminent Dead
Today, as she celebrates the quinceanera of her blog, I realised that she also:
- is an awesome people herder
- is one of the forces behind A Book Apart
- is one of the leading lights of web design world
- has put in time as a suit (CEO)
Which leads me to understand how she writes so resonantly.
It’s not just her beautiful mind, but also that she writes with her scars.
From her celebratory post,
And this is a home, in more ways than one. There are books here that have taken up residence in my mind. Or perhaps more accurately, I have lived long residencies within them, have curled up under their eaves and stretched out on the porch, have explored the basements and attics and crawl spaces. I read on paper still, so the evidence of time spent is visible in dog-eared corners and coffee stains, in curling covers and the occasional broken spine. I’m hardest on the books I love the most, so that more than one of them is neighbored by a newer edition: not replaced (because I would never forsake my margin notes) but accompanied by a copy that will decay in its own way, soon enough.
And maybe that’s a good way to think about blogging, too. The new stuff sits next to the old but doesn’t supplant it, doesn’t shove it out of the way. Each new post lays atop the next like sediment, and all the old layers remain exposed for you to meander through, with their mediocre sentences and lapsed claims, all the sloppy thinking ever on display. It’s a great exercise in humility, keeping a blog for this many years. But in exchange for the keen awareness of how far I still have to go as a writer, I have the space to keep going. I have the home to keep coming back to. And I will. I will return, again and again
Thank you, Mandy!
For all you do, for all you’ve taught me, for the worlds you’ve led me to, and the all the dreams you’ve shown me.
Feedback on this post? Mail me at feedback@janusworx.com
P.S. I now have to go catch up with thirteen to fourteen years worth of writing. There goes June!
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