I Will Try To Write Something.

 

7:47am, Friday morning. Sit down and try to write something: GO. 

Noah has just gotten on the bus (the bus driver had to beckon me over to tell me she's telling all the parents that the kids need to calm down in the afternoons-- they're getting too rowdy and making her afternoon route difficult) and I am going to try to sit down at this computer some mornings a week just to write...Even though every time Quinn sees me sit in this chair, he pleads to sit on my lap and watch Elmo on YouTube. EVERY TIME. I'm going to pull the ottoman over and try to see if he will detach himself from the idea of my lap and just sit alongside me instead. It does still mean I will have Elmo next to me on the screen while I type... but its a season of concessions, ya know? And I need to write. 

At this point, I will sit, but with no concrete intentions beyond just putting fingers to keyboard-- hence the play-by-play that today's entry is turning into. I know that A.) I need to write ("I will write myself into well-being"- Nancy Mair) just for my own balance and joy. And  B.) This blog is more of a journal in my life than my actual journal has been for many years now, and I cherish journaling. C.) Even if the world of Facebook and Instagram has mostly killed off personal blogging and bloggers and BLOG READERS, I cherish this little world here, and any readers I have left, and I don't want you to give up on me.D.) If I show up and put hands to keyboard more frequently, then perhaps I will write past the brain-dump stage and begin to have actual ideas, theses, themes, topics, stories.... More cohesive things to say, with a planned, writerly beginning and end. Perhaps. Maybe not. Maybe you'll just always be subjected to my freewriting forever, and then you'll leave and go read something much more fulfilling, and that's okay. I'll still be here, trying to write.

(Since 7:47, I've clicked on 5 different "Super Simple Songs" YouTube videos for Quinn. So far, he's content on the ottoman next to me. He has a train in each chubby fist and is riveted by the music and cartoony visuals. We haven't even started on Elmo yet today, but it's early.)

It's been twenty days since I last blogged. For the first time since starting it, this span of time has actually been fully unintentional, and I've even gone for most of the first two weeks not even realizing I'd let it slip. Then this last week, I've been amazed at myself for not even having it on my guilt-radar, which of course, then gets it onto that guilt radar... But no-- it's not just guilt. it's that usually I get itchy to blog so much sooner than this, and that itch wasn't there. Just LIFE, ya know? And it makes sense to me when weeks go by like this, how friends and bloggers I've loved in the past fade away from blogging and try to come back and then try again a few months later, and then.... nothing. It's the end. 

I don't want that here. For above-mentioned reasons. 

And I DO prepare blog posts in my head. All day. Daily. I really do think about my life through the lens of writing and photo-taking. The photo-taking is easier to keep up with, even if those photos don't get culled, edited, shared as much as they get taken. The internal dialog I have all day, though--- that is so much harder to keep up with. I feel like I have these pesonal epiphanies or funny observations or just stories about my little adventures, and the words form in my head and could go straight to paper if I could just sit RIGHT THEN and write them down. But inevitably, the times I finally have some headspace to think thoughts that get deep and fleshed out are when I'm DRIVING. Or holding Quinn for his pre-nap snuggle. Or MOWING THE LAWN. Or going for a walk. 

You too? It makes total sense: those times are meditative. Those times are times when less external demand is upon me, yet I'm still engaged... I'm not answering Noah's questions or meeting Lucy's demands.... I'm not rushing to keep Quinn out of danger. The headspace is open, even as the hands or feet are working. And in this perfect combination of action/non-action, my thoughts are free to flow. But once that meditative time is done- I've arrived at my location, or Quinn has been laid down, or the lawn is done, it's GO-TIME again and I'm back on-duty and of course it's no time to sit at a keyboard and write. But by the time I get time to sit alone, my head has emptied and I'm just glad for a break from ALL of it, thinking included. Constant push-and-pull of this life right now. (We've moved on to Elmo. It's keeping him content. Thank you, YouTube.)

I am not complaining: The trade-off is worth it to me. I am choosing to multi-task less, to require less of myself, to appreciate the way my life looks right this minute. (Oh, he's slid off the ottoman and seemed like he might go play away from me, but no, he's back on my other side and pulling my arm, asking, "Down?" which means "Up?".....My time is ending....) And I DO appreciate this version of life. But I also miss journaling. Blogging. Writing. So maybe I can sit a few mornings a week, right after Noah has gotten on the bus, while Lucy still sleeps, and train Quinn to be okay with Ottoman-Elmo-Time, and get some of this out of me and down for posterity. I'm going to give it a try. Don't look for remarkable-ness.... just look for me showing up. That's a pretty good goal for now.

(8:16. Not bad, actually. Thanks, Quinn.)

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