I spent a good bit of time (a Good Bit– read: more than one hour) trying to improve my blog today. My dear friend Lynne recently re-did hers (complete with family photo: family in matching outfits and looking characteristically themselves while walking down a street somewhere in Shanghai (I’m thinking she should and may use this for her Christmas card photo and Yikes! I have nothing (yet) of the kind for my Christmas cards))– and it looks really great. And following a link or two from her page and others, I found other blogs that looked really great and was reminded (again) of the fact that this page before you is Woefully Plain.
I have fooled with appearances here before. I’ve changed the name twice. I’ve tried different pictures at the header (that’s what that top part there is called) and changed the colors. I’ve changed my profile picture at least once. I’ve also added and then dropped things in the sidebar. And today I spent a long time over at Shabby Blogs, a blog where you can get free (free) decorations of All Sorts for your blog and add them to yours at No Cost (did I mention it was free?). I had admired for some time the impact of such decorations at Leslie’s blog before, but had never made time (that’s crucial) to investigate. I had a great deal of fun investigating today.
Sadly, despite the time I spent and the enormous variety over there at Shabby Blogs, none of them would answer. No matter what I tried fitting in around the margins of the words on this page, those images and decorations very nearly overwhelmed me. I just couldn’t handle them. No.
And so we’re back to blank space over here. Just white. Just blank. Just empty. Words and the occasional photograph or two. That’s all I think you’ll be getting from me. That’s all.
But the truth is that I think I like it this way. I’m not good with clutter (Lynne would surely confirm that for you, should you ask), and sometimes lots of visual “stuff” simply registers in my mind as so much noise: it interferes with my concentration and crowds my brain and makes it much more difficult (so much more) to Think.
Sometimes all I want is quiet and simple lines and maybe the low light of winter.
I haven’t written much here lately. Not enough blankness in my life, I think. I have ever so much to see and do on any given day. But the page is what I’m hungry for, I think: blank paper, but for the lines; an empty computer screen, but for the tool bar. And maybe, too, the cleanness of this blog page.
If that’s all I need for inspiration, then I’ll take it.
