It Isn't Like Dylan Going Electric Or Anything...

I originally intended to have a blog where I could put my recipes, my craft adventures, my personal book reviews. But I've really grown to love writing and be passionate about what I have to say, saying it the right way, and making valid and important points that will hopefully challenge others. I've written a few essays inspired largely by Barbara Kingsolver about things from consumerism, to homelessness, to our food culture (some of these have yet to be published). I've also taken to writing more anecdotes from my own life, inspired both by the narratives accompanying all the recipes found on Molly's Wizenerg's blog Orangette and the beautiful photos and stories Olivia Rae posts on her picturesque blog Everyday Musings.

From this smorgasbord of sources, I've decided to alter the course of this blog a bit. Instead of sticking to the rather impersonal, instructional posts I originally set out to do, I've come to expand my horizons. This is my space for me to use to express myself however I please. Though I do want to expand my readership, it's not so much because I have hopes of making money of this blog with ads or because I think that having followers in the triple-digits will improve my self esteem. I guess above all else I want to share and to connect. Sometimes I read other posts around the blogosphere and feel like their author would completely understand me, that he or she would be a close friend of mine were we placed in the same city. I find recipes, craft projects, book reviews, essays, photographs, images, thoughts that others put out into the blogosphere that I find inspiring or relatable or important or funny or beautiful and I want more. I'm hoping that RadiatorTunes can become less of a useful or practical blog and more of a place for thoughts and stories to share with others in the hope that meaningful virtual connections can be made.

I often worry that having a blog at all is a self-important move on my part - to assume that there are people out there who don't even know me but want to read what I have to say or hear about the happenings of my life. But I'm learning that the blogging community isn't full of such self-centered, cocky people. Instead it is mostly people that decide to create their own sites to pursue or further a certain passion, to connect and network, to indulge in what they love. And, though at first my intentions took on a slightly different form, I'm now recognizing my love of writing and my power to take that wherever I want. I don't want to confine myself, for my interests are wide and varied and constantly in flux. But whatever I'm raving or ranting about for the moment, I can most immerse myself in this thing in this moment by writing about it. And rather than filing those writings away in a folder on my computer's desktop, never to be retrieved or re-visited again, I figure I'll put it out there, fight off the fear or embarrassment that originally accompanied the thought of putting my name on anything I've publicly written, and hopefully share it with someone who appreciates it.

So that's just my current rant or rave, I'm not sure which. I was all excited when Mike came home from the gym because I had just completed a four and a half page essay on food - cooking, our food culture, the Western diet, the disgusting excuse we have for an agricultural system, etc. - and his first response was a huge smile and "Are you going to post it?" That thought terrified me a bit at first. I had so much to say, I was probably rambling on and on, and besides, who would want to read what I've written when Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver can say it so much better? And my readers, would I alienate with my long diatribe about all things food culture when they're used to Christmas cookies and new novels from the library? But then Mike made me realize how silly my worries were when he convinced me that using this blog as a space to write about anything I desired, no matter the topic or length, rather than my original limited intentions "isn't like Dylan going electric or anything..." I do love a good Bob Dylan reference I guess.

Anyway those are my thoughts and revised intentions. I hope that, if nothing else, I can continue to share my writing with the 15 or so lovely and wonderful people who already follow what I've got to say here. Thanks for reading and thank you my fellow bloggers for sharing!