Conversation Starter

I had an interesting insight into the position of some friends of mine who read my blog: they don't feel the need to check in or check up on me in person via email, phone, or visit, because they know how and what I'm doing by reading my posts. It must be true. Three of them said so yesterday at playgroup. And I think it's true with my sister. I know she reads this blog fairly regularly, but we almost never get a chance to communicate directly (huh, Banana, maybe we should).

I have a small cadre of readers who respond to me digitally or personally. They will either concur or contradict me, or just use the post as a catalyst to start a conversation. Otherwise, I'm in the dark not only about what people think but who reads this at all. And while I do write this blog to work through my own thoughts and ideas as well as record certain events for posterity, my other main goal is keeping in touch, communicating with others. But how do you do that on a blog, which is predominantly one-sided? Well, hopefully, if I write something that interests or incites you, you'll let me know and we can talk about it, a real, honest-to-goodness two-way conversation. And not just the posts where I get on my digital soapbox, but any posts that have reverberations in your own life. In the end, a post is a conversation starter, not a conversation substitute. Because I want to know about you, even if all I'm doing is writing about me. .