Sophisticated Lizards

Let's face it. 
Bloggers are just sophisticated lizards, a species of human chameleons with the ability to change our skins. We are - apparently - the very essence of slithering anonymity. Some silently scream, others inundate with bells and whistles, most just want to have their say. 

While it may be true that the African lizard of whom I speak is reported to have a projectile tongue - yet another resemblance to those of us who daily spit verbiage online - I'm beginning to appreciate the more beautiful aspects of my fellow bloggers. The world - according to Mimi - is becoming a much smaller place.

At the click of my mouse I may find any sort of neighbor a half a world away or inconspicuously hiding (like our lizard friend) just around the corner, down the street, in my house, in my head. I have come to appreciate the complex world of blogging as a good thing, freedom of expression as a sacred journey, voyeurism at its best. Strip down the commercial mongers and we might just have something quite amazing.

My neighbors reside just through the next-blog door and sometimes, what I find, rocks my world. As it should. Mothers post pictures of newborns like shining constellations of another chameleon variety, sassy teenagers with music blaring and life pouring from every word (they're writing! YES!), thoughtful clergy with souls to save, Red Hat Ladies sipping green tea and teaching yoga, a soldier in Iraq, or the worried face of a mother trying to get her children out of Lebanon. My neighborhood is full of simple joys and extraordinary pain.

But what I like about blogging is this: even when I have to skip to the other side of the sidewalk to dodge propaganda and self-serving neighbors, there is always another story - "a person of real" I like to call them, someone who is writing from a place of courage and self-discovery. For just a bit, I can step into their life and read and feel what once was reserved for laboriously censored print or diaries locked tight in secrecy. A dialogue has begun - strangers asking each other not only to understand my difference and viewpoint - but also, "Come on in! Sit down a spell and tell me what you think. I may not always agree, but the simple truth is - I could use the company."

And that, my friends, is well worth the price of admission.