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Photo from Cadence

Hands poised above the keyboard, wrists down, fingers curved, lowering, lowering, pinkie pressed down…it begins! Today is the first day of National Blog Posting Month, a blogging event that I decided to join in a moment of impetuous commitment. (Can you be impetuously committed?)

Since I decided to be a committed blogger for the month of November, I have been wondering, “what the hell I am going to write about every day?” The NaBloPoMo site suggests choosing a theme. Hmmm. What about the theme I had in mind when I started this blog? You know, what does globalization, or glocalization, look like in our everyday life? What global connections are we blithely unaware of, even though they are at the tips of our noses? I like that theme; I have not written about it enough on this blog. But the truth is I am too selfish to write about globalization for a month. Some nights I just want to write about Boston, why Comcast pisses me off, or what I ate for dinner.

Still, I like the idea of a unifying theme. Then it came to me. At its core NaBloPoMo is about saying, “Yes, I am going to write. I don’t know what, and the posts maybe be incoherent, spelling defected, logic addled rants, but damn it all, I am going to write.” But for me its more than just the commitment to write. Not only am I going to write, but this month I am going to write honestly. Or, as honestly as I can.

I used to think I was an honest person, but I’m really not. The twists and turns of my own self-deception first became clear to me at a time when I wasn’t writing much prose. During my twenties I channeled my desire to write into songwriting. Not very sophisticated songwriting, mind you. One day I mustered up the courage to play one of my songs to a man I loved, who, as a consequence of being much more accomplished than me, was often critical of my small achievements. This time, however, he checked his critical tongue. As I lowered my guitar he simply said, “You’re getting honest. Keep writing.”

From time to time I think of his words. “You’re getting honest.” What does that mean? It definitely doesn’t mean telling all. A guts fest on the page. Although I have been known to do that. I think writing honestly at the very least is about having the courage to write with a voice shorn of insecurity and self-pity. So there you have it, honesty, the theme that will be guiding this month’s NaBloPoMo blog posts.