Meme~ing

NOVEMBER 4, 2007

Everything we see, touch, or taste is... stardust. All
of the carbon in our bodies, all of the oxygen in the air,
all of the silicon in the rocks and sand came into
existence inside ancient stars. At the end of their lives,
in explosions of unimaginable ferocity, their debris was
thrown into space. It took billions of years for this
stardust to form new stars and planets under the
influence of gravity.
This excerpt came from an exhibition at the CERN nuclear accelerator in Switzerland where my step-son is now living and doing his doctoral research (more on that later!)
I've been tagged by my new friend [Rambler](http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a0ca0df914e6beb5f43d271/5b6e1f401c8655a69cf9259c/5b6e24d61c8655a69cf9dee9/1533945046401/?format=original) as to five reasons I write. And he already knows me well enough that he guessed correctly that I don't do tags!!!! But I am touched that he would think of me and honor me in this way and I will answer his tag, but I will not be tagging it on. So if this post does spark you to do the same, let me know and I will gladly add a link here to you!
I had to look up what a meme is. My interpretation is that like a gene that passes on genetic material, blueprints, and all the characteristics that make us human, memes do this in the cultural sense. Ideas, concepts, cultural ideals, are passed on and kept alive by memes.

  1\. I have to write. If I don't, something will explode within me. The
feelings, passions, and desires in me have to find expression, a place
to be, like a curtain in a window...

  2\. Blogging has pushed me over an edge. I am seen. People come and visit
and sometimes comment and I have no control over how they perceive, or
how they interpret, what I share. This makes me stay honest with what I
post. It also makes me feel raw, vulnerable, and humble. I have to know that I am 100 percent behind what I put into cyberspace. And I do not do this annonymously, so the mask I wear here, is very thin...

  3\. If it were not for the computer, I could not write at all. I had sever trauma in my early years around grammar, sentence structure, etc., as well as dyslexia. The first time I sat down at a computer, it was as if a light came on in a dark room. Because of years of graduate school, thousands of papers and a dissertation, I can now write from a very left brain place. I can proof dry medical reports, but run as far away as I can from that type of structure when I blog. My poetry and images have their own agenda, and it is wonderful and a bit scary at times, to let them take control.

  4\. I love reading and being inspired by other writers. I have found conversations and connections that have become very important to me and dear to my heart. I am sparked by others here in Bloglandia in a way that I never thought possible.

  5\. Over the years I have filled my life with a lot of structure. Blogging has challenged me to let go of some of the many have to's and must do's that roll around in my head. I have found so many unspoken rules that I impose upon myself and my writing that I've had to let them go, one by one, or I would not be able to write or nor have a blog. And as I said in statement "1", I have to write... 
I have to find expression for this stardust that resides in me... and to look in awe at the pinpoints of light that exist around me... and feel this pull of gravity that brings this all into form....

Thank you Rambler...