Much to my surprise, my wife was reading my blog. She mentioned to me in last week of June, she perused the post about our daughter coming back from South Africa, and also the next one.
Then, on Saturday morning, June 28th, I heard music from her office. Usually, if she has any audio entertainment, it’s either talk from NPR or classical music, but this was distinctly not that. No, she was listening to links from my post about the #1 country songs in 1955. This is fascinating because I’ve been writing for two decades, and that hasn’t always been the case.
I remember the days when we would visit my friend Fred Hembeck and his wife and child. Fred and I would talk about things we had in our blogs. My wife is trying to understand what we were talking about.
FGH
In fact, I wrote about it here in 2008: Fred, “our wives and I also had a philosophical conversation about blogging. My wife chastised me for saying that she should look at my blog, rather than me having to explain what I had written. I noted that it isn’t just the information in the blog that I was trying to convey, but the style and manner in which I said it.” Ultimately, I resigned myself to making inadequate bullet points if she asked.
She intellectually knew that I always wrote about her on her birthday and our anniversary, and occasionally on Mother’s Day, though our anniversary and Mother’s Day are very close together.
Now she’s reading the blog, at least sometimes. I’d taken it as a matter of faith that she’s not reading it, so the change is a whoa moment.
Anyway, today is her birthday. She’s taken off work for the summer, though I know at least a few work-related calls. This means that all things she can’t get done during the rest of the year are going on. My wife had to go through that stuff after her mother moved from one retirement facility to another, smaller location.
Things are already better. She’s cleared off the dining room table of the material that had been there since we filed our taxes in April. (Why didn’t I put it away? Because our filing systems are mutually confounding.) She probably has more projects to do than time to do them in the next four weeks, but she’ll use the time well—she likes morning walks—and I’m sure I will be enlisted to work on many of those projects.
Happy birthday, dear. I love you.
That’s really a big deal, Roger. I blogged for nearly 20 years, often about my family and life events, and I don’t think my wife ever once so much as looked at it. As you say, it’s so much more than just the information you impart. Maybe because you were a librarian for so long it never occurred to her that it is a wonderful creative outlet for you as well.
Please tell Carol I wish her a very happy birthday!
I love that photo of your wife! Please tell her that I send birthday greetings from Alabama!
I’ve been blogging for quite a few years and my husband has never read my blog. He has no idea how to access it. I have read a few posts aloud to him over the years.