The writer Henry Miller once advised, “Never read a book you could write yourself.” The point being that the act of reading should be reserved for material that expands your horizons, challenges your prejudices, and seduces you away from familiar habits of thought.

I’ve been wondering if the same advice should hold true for blog reading. Because if it does, I’ve been ignoring the advice. I won’t deny it. I’m not exactly reading blogs of professional dancers, lawyers, chemists, or politicians. I’m not reading blogs of coin collectors, toy train enthusiasts, or soap opera fans. All of those modes of life are alien to my own. I just don’t go there. Hell, even the topics I am interested in learning more about, like graphic novels, astronomy, classical music, urban planning, and cooking, aren’t bookmarked on my computer.

So what am I reading? I’m reading the same thing you are reading right now, single parent blogs. I’m hooked and I never would have guessed it a year ago. I never even visited a blog a year ago. But there is something in the lives of other single parents that draws me, and more, single parent bloggers have shown me something about blogs in general that I think makes them fundamentally different from books, lectures, movies, or any of the other ways we educate ourselves and expand our horizons.

So what is that something? Well, I would say that for the most part, I have found blogging to be not so much about exploring new fields (of knowledge), but rather gaining a greater appreciation for common ground. It’s not what each single parent blogger might uniquely share, but rather, it is what we all seem to have in common that I find so attractive. Lately, I’m less interested in the unique observations of a blogger than I am somehow satisfied in knowing that we all sweep our kitchen floors, fear for the future of our children, vacillate between enthusiasm and despair in the dating world, stare in awe at our children as they sleep, insist on learning from our failures and dare to imagine bright futures.

The most mundane tales of our days has the most unusual effect on me now. We stand in line at grocery stores, fill out forms, put gas in our cars, worry about money, eat left overs, tie up the top of garbage bags, take the clothes from the washer and put them in the dryer. And against these tasks there are those little victories that make my heart swell. We tape a drawing to the refrigerator, we place a tooth under a pillow, we clap at a school presentation, we clasp a little hand that reaches for ours first, we turn out the last light in the evening.

All of these efforts shine like the sun to me today. And while, yes, I do love the little quirks that makes up each of our little peculiarities, and no doubt I’ll be ready for fresh points of view soon enough, today I love the common ground. I’m respectful of our shared efforts. I’m grateful for our shared lives.

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