Mardi Meditations #1

Kayaking Carey Bay

Today I started my sabbatical, and it felt a lot like launching a kayak out onto the lake. The shore is receding faster than expected, but I am not focused yet on plotting a discussing course. I am gliding myself into the future.

My goal for this next chapter of my life is to work on myself, and that includes bringing back a more regular public writing practice. Welcome to the first of a series I’m calling “Mardi Meditations.”

Why make public writing a part of my regular practice? I have already committed to morning pages as well as freehand journaling many evenings of the week. But for me, blogging is a worthwhile practice that relates to my understanding of “heritage.”

According to Antoinette Jackson in her seminal book Speaking for the Enslaved, “heritage is what we choose to keep.” The past is forever receding. That is no less true in the culture of public history scholarship. At a recent meeting of the editorial board of the NCPH blog, History@Work, a few of the newer affiliate editors asked, why should NCPH maintain a blog? Isn’t blogging passe? With almost twenty years under my belt as a blogger, I have watched as content creators on the Internet have moved from personal blogs to social media accounts to subscription-based newsletter sites. What I like best about the blog format is the balance between constraint and personalization. There is a freedom in the long- form essay open to the world. This sense of freedom is what I want to take with me into the future.

Thus, my experiment in weekly posts. Since I can’t resist a little alliteration, and I’m continuing to enjoy studying French as a hobbyist: Mardi Meditations.