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Deborah J. Brasket

~ Living on the Edge of the Wild

Deborah J. Brasket

Tag Archives: celebration

Celebrating Ten Years of Blogging

11 Monday Jul 2022

Posted by deborahbrasket in Blogging

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

basic human need, Blogging, borderlands, celebration, Community, exploring, Friends, Living on the edge of the wild, personal, ten years, touching

When I created this blog ten years ago I named it “Living on the Edge of the Wild.” I saw this space as a place to explore what I saw as the borderlands between what we know as humankind and the vast wilderness of what we do not know. I wrote in my first blog post on July 12, 2012:

We all are, in some way, living on the edge of the wild, either literally or figuratively, whether we know it or not.  We all are standing at the edge of some great unknown, exploring what it means to be human in a more-than-human universe.

We encounter the “wild” not only in the natural world, but . . . at the edges of science, the arts, and human consciousness.

I began my exploration into the wild quite literally, when our family was living aboard La Gitana and traveling around the world for six years. It became starkly apparent when I was sailing across the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by nothing but the sky above and the sea below, that I was living on the edge of something primitive and uninhibited, vulnerable to potentially terrifying forces that could rip us apart or swallow us whole. And yet those very same forces are what filled our sails and moved us forward, and what cradled us below, harboring in those depths the creatures that astounded us with their beauty and power.

I came to appreciate in the most intimate way how tiny and insignificant we humans appear in the natural world that surrounds and supports us.  We are indeed living on the edge of the wild, the largely untamed and unknown world into which we are born, exploring the borderlands that lay between the human and the more-than-human worlds, and the ways they overlap and mirror each other.

Looking back over the past ten years of blogging, I’ve tried to stay true to that original vision. sharing my thought on what fascinates me in nature, the arts and sciences, as well as my own creative endeavors and explorations of what it means to be a mother, a writer and someone who worries about the world—who wants to save it and savor it—all its beauty and joy—at the same time.

Over the years I’ve managed to gather 10,000+ followers (according to the website metrics which is not always accurate). But interest in my posts wane and flow, and sometimes, for personal reasons, I’ve let the blogging trickle to a near stop. Eventually, I’ve always returned. Because there’s still so much I want to explore, so many things I discover (books, artwork, music) that give me such pleasure I want to share them with others, and because blogging meets a basic human need—to touch others and be touched in return.

That was the topic of my most popular post, “Blogging and the Accident of Touching,” written nine years ago. I wrote:

We’ve all heard how physical touching is essential to human health and happiness. They say people can shrivel up and die for want of being touched or having someone to touch. A simple pat on the shoulder, a hug, a hand squeeze can make all the difference. Merely having a pet, they say, saves lives.

But there’s a basic human need for another kind of touching—from the inside out. Touching others with what means the most to us, our deepest responses to the world around us. Keeping those unspoken, unexpressed, can be as withering as being untouched physically. Which is why, perhaps, so many writers and artists will give their work away for free if need be, just to allow what’s inside out into the world where it can touch others, and “evoke responses.”

I’ve enjoyed reaching out and touching others over these past ten years, and being touched in return by your likes and responses, and by reading and responding to your blog posts. I’ve made several dear blogging friends whom I’ve never met but feel I know quite well. I’ve learned so much sharing this space with you.

So please accept my heartfelt thanks to all of you who have been with me from the very beginning, to those of you who have stopped by from time to time, and to those who have only recently tuned in to see what this space is all about. Thank you for helping me celebrate a decade of “Living on the Edge of the Wild.”

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Truth and Love Wins, and I Can Breathe Again!

08 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by deborahbrasket in Culture, Love

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

America is Back, Biden wins, celebration, Love, Politics, Presidential Election 2020, truth, Truth and Love wins, USA

I feel like I’ve been ship-wrecked at sea for the past four years and finally have reached the shore.

I want to kiss the ground.

And then get up and dance.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, America!!!

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“Endless Love” – A 6th Year Celebration

12 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by deborahbrasket in Art, Family, Love, Photography

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Anniversary, art collage, celebration, daughter, life, personal, wedding

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I created this collage to celebrate my daughter and her husband’s 6th wedding anniversary, today. They were married January 12 in Shell Beach. Her husband made a surfboard called “endless Love” for all the guest to sign, and she made and decorated her dark chocolate, chiptole pepper wedding cake. Their best friend officiated as they stood barefoot in the sand with the waves unrolling in the background.

Aside from the births of my children and grandchildren, it was the happiest day of my life.

I wrote a post about that day six years ago Sea, Sky, Earth, Fire – My Daughter on Her Wedding Day,  which began:

She was married beneath a cliff on the edge of the sea standing barefoot on the rocky beach. Barking seals sunning on rocks and crashing waves nearly drowned out the simple ceremony.

Hunchbacked boulders rose from the sea behind her like giant guardian sentinels. A single guitarist played flamenco music to match the red rose in her hair while the late afternoon sun glimmered across the waves.

Sea. Sky. Earth. Fire. All four essential elements holding the world together blended beautifully together that day.

Below are a few photos and memories that I tried to capture in my collage.

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Happy Anniversary, Kelli and Andrew!

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Help Me Celebrate a Writing Milestone

27 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by deborahbrasket in Fiction, My Writing, Short Story, The Writing Process, Writing

≈ 28 Comments

Tags

books, celebration, Novel, writers, writing, writing milestone, writing process

PartieCarree_Tissot wikipedia commonsI just finished writing an 85,000 word novel that I’ve been working on the past couple of years.  It feels good to have completed something of this magnitude, even though I still have a lot of work to do to get it ready to send out to agents.

I’m hoping you can help me do that by “liking” my author page on Facebook, or following me on Twitter.  A strong “platform” could give me the edge I need in a competitive market.  You can do so by clicking the links in the sidebar, or going to the pages at the links below.

https://www.facebook.com/DeborahJBrasket

https://twitter.com/DeborahBrasket

Reading 1881_Kramskoi_Frauenportraet_anagoriaI’m also looking for a new set of readers, people who will commit to read the novel and provide feedback on several levels:  how well it holds your attention, where it sings, where it sags; if there are any holes or gaps in the content (dangling threads, illogical time warps, etc.); anything that comes to mind that could make the novel stronger.  If you think you’d like to help out this way, please let me know.

“From the Far Ends of the Earth” is about what happens when the one person who has been holding together a difficult family mysteriously disappears. Will those left behind have the strength and love, or even the will, to keep from falling apart?

The novel is told from the perspective of the three family members left behind.

Kay is a “cranky” grad student studying archeology.   While distrusting men in general, and her father and brother in particular, she has been extremely close to her mother, who now leaves mysterious messages on Kay’s answering machine.  Mourning her loss, Kay sifts through the shards and debris of childhood memories trying to understand the past and learn how to trust again.

Cal has spent most of his life on the street strung out on heroin, but he’s living at home when his mother disappears. He is deeply hurt and angry at her disappearance, and mystified by the strange photographs she mails him.  When his father suddenly leaves, he is left on his own with a house to care for and no clue how to do it. Eventually he discovers his own artistic outlet welding sculpture from scrap metal. Then he takes in a boarder whose tattooed body reveals a past even more tragic than his own.

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Walter awaits his wife’s return by paying her credit card bills and tracking her journey through Central and South America.  Then he decides to take his own long-delayed trip to Alaska, where a new life, new love, and new tragedy await him. When his wife’s credit card bills stop coming, he travels to Machu Picchu in the mountains of Peru to find her.

I wrote more about the novel in a blog post, which includes a link to a short story “When Things Go Missing” adapted from one of Cal’s chapters.

I have a second short story adaptation in the works from one of Kay’s chapters set Mexico at an archeological dig.  It’s called “The Fragrance of Rocks.”  While I’m finishing up the final revisions on the novel, I’ll be working on it and some of my other short stories.

800px-Cocktail_by_candle_light_1The writing life, I’m finding, is one never-ending process.  Which is why it’s so important to share and celebrate the milestones with others.  I hope you will join me!

“Friday I tasted life. It was a vast morsel.” – Emily Dickinson

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”  – Anaïs Nin

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Recent Posts

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Purpose of Blog

After sailing around the world in a small boat for six years, I came to appreciate how tiny and insignificant we humans appear in our natural and untamed surroundings, living always on the edge of the wild, into which we are embedded even while being that thing which sets us apart. Now living again on the edge of the wild in a home that borders a nature preserve, I am re-exploring what it means to be human in a more than human world.

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