The Laundry-Line

It occurred to me today that perhaps I should explain the quote that appears at the top of my new-and-improved (thanks to the Ogre) blog. On the one hand, it doesn’t need much explanation. It’s a few lines from one of the most amazing poems ever written in the English language, “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World.” The author is the only man I’ve ever loved without meeting (don’t worry, the Ogre is okay with this), Richard Wilbur. He’s an amazing poet, a World War II veteran, and a devoted husband, father and grandfather, all qualities which contribute to make him just…awesome. In the Biblical sense, not in the sense I usually use that word.

See the difference?

Anyway, the reason I chose that particular poem is because of a comment my father-in-law made once. We were discussing the advent of blogging and what blogging meant, how it fit into the spectrum of communication, etc., and my father-in-law said that blogging is the equivalent of women talking over the laundry-line. At first I was annoyed by this. I thought it trivialized both blogging and women (not that blogging doesn’t trivialize itself), but after thinking about it (alright, after the Ogre set me straight) I realized that this is a pretty apt comparison. We, as a society, have lost the crucial social circles that used to sustain us. Thanks to the advent of technology, people live further away from friends and family and spend more time in their own houses, connecting to either the TV or their computer rather than their neighbors. So where do we go when we crave the companionship of like-minded individuals? The blogosphere, of course! (And social networks, but that’s not what this post is about.)

So the quote at the top is sort of an invitation. Come read my blog, see if we’re like-minded, and leave a comment! Be my substitute-laundry-line friend!