Removing the "Calm and Quiet"

My cans haven't been collected recently. And my phone calls haven't been returned either.

I read an article on treehugger about how the slumping economy has significantly sunk the value of recyclables such as plastic and metal. The article went so far as to call the recyclables "practically worthless." Perhaps that's why Colleen hasn't come around. But I don't think that's what it is.

I think between working a night job and taking care of her sons, this extremely hard-working woman just became too busy to wake up early on Saturday and Sunday mornings to collect cans these past few weeks... which puts me in a strange situation.

I have been thinking to myself, extremely worried because I no longer have a story for this blog. The person whom I had wanted to follow and learn from has been virtually unavailable. The interesting angle that gives the audience a glimpse of what life is like in another person's shoes has disappeared. And quite honestly, a lot of time, effort and hours of lost sleep on my part seem to now be for nothing. 

But the truth is that none of my time has been wasted and my story is not obsolete. The path to the story is the story, which is what makes blogging so interesting. It's not about the neat and polished final product. It's about the ongoing process that can come out looking nice and polished but can also come out a bit more rough. Like Andrew Sullivan said in his article about blogging--it is free-form, accident-prone, less formal, and my personal favorite, more alive. 

Alive. 

A blog is alive. It has the capability to not only tell a story, but also transparently show the journey of getting there. As Sullivan said, blogging "removes the calm and quiet." The ups and downs that a journalist experiences while trying to put together a story never make it into the final product. They are purposely excluded. But in a blog, not only are they included, but they become the story itself.