stats, quilts, and other themes

I can look at some stats on both my blogs and generally do, and try not to let them discourage me. Sometimes they surprise me, like the several weeks that stats showed high readership when I was out of pocket with not means of blogging, followed by a sharp decline starting the day I was able to resume. So they were checking repeatedly to see if I had posted and the real number of readers was the small number, or they gave up just before my return? Lately my numbers on my other blog have been modestly high steadily, then dropped like a rock the last couple of days. Should I blame internet problems, the one day late post, or was it a comment on the theme?

In this case, the latter seems likely enough. I mentioned my 9-11 themed quilted wall hanging I made for a display, just a little thing but I tried to fill it with symbols, maybe a few too many, but collages are like that. Anyway, I know I regularly get a lot of hits from somewhere in the midEast, periodically at least, probably because ene is a word in some Arabic or related language, so maybe the reference didn't go over well. Or maybe some readers had been thinking I was something other than American and were disappointed I wasn't from wherever they thought I was from. But I don't know so I go on and wonder why I keep looking at the numbers. There's always the thought that maybe they will improve tomorrow... and the fact that the news likes to mention big numbers when some site, usually a video clip, goes big, which subtlely conveys the messages that numbers count.

Anyway, I intended to talk about symbology in writing and derailed myself so decided to mention it here. I like using symbols in my quilt and other art projects as occasion permits. i try to be aware when I see it (medieval illuminations are full of it but you need a manual to sort them out and figure out the story as if each mini picture was a hieroglyphic that told a whole story, or a language like they had on Star Trek Next Gen, where they spoke in phrases that were each a reference to a story with the apropriate theme for the message at hand. Sometimes I think the really great writer is the one that can invent such a reference and use it in such a way that the reader not only understands it but is ready to use it in their own natural speech, not even knowing where the word or phrase came from, but I don't think it's the sort of thing you can achieve on purpose.

It is, however, the ultimate sort of metaphor, and the primary way I can think of to build a verbal symbol, especially in a science fiction or fantasy, where presumably the world is different that that of the reader (ignoring magical fantasies and near-future SF set in the contemporary world): a reference to a story that is conveyed to the reader as a small story within the story or described in a sentence or two, an event with a name, a date with a meaning, or a flower or other object that plays a role in one scene to turn it into a symbol of that scene, and its use later. Such symbol goes unnoticed, but if they are there, the discerning reader will eventually appreciate them and they are a way to reward the repeat reader. More subtle ones can be built in with allusions to popular novels and books that the reader might be familiar with even if they can mean nothing to the characters. So, symbols are possible in the verbal arts as well as the visual arts, and like in the visual arts, they might need a translator, but I like to think the stories are the richer, however invisibly, for being there.

What do you think?