Being a parent means that your hopes and thoughts fly along beside your children wherever they go.
Daily departure time wishes, hugs, and prayers are important because they give the kids a glimpse into our hearts. My Evangelical Christian friends use the phrase “covered in prayer” which I think is beautiful, and describes my belief that prayer is a gift from God to bring protection, comfort, and power to His children. So, we send them off each day with our best wishes, covered in prayer.
What would a blog by Emily Dickinson look like?
Would she be interested in writing a blog? I think so, but I think she would probably post anonymously. She would write because it made her feel better. That’s the way I think it should be.
I think that Emily Dickinson would agree that blogging introduces some different challenges than writing privately. The audience, the pace, and the focus on the present are some of the challenges and blessings of writing a blog.
Challenge #1: The Audience
My audience can influence what and how I write. I know how many people visit the blog each day. This is not a good thing to think about. Numbers aren’t always a good measure of merit. They are a measure of my lack of publicity, my non-trendy voice …. and the number of female siblings that I have.
I know my audience, so I post lots of pictures of the kids. I care about my relationships, so I tread carefully though certain topics. This is a good thing. I have avoided many topics because I have an audience. Authenticity is one of those terms that people present as an ultimate goal. Many people think being authentic means sharing everything that comes into our heads. I think authenticity comes when we have carefully considered our words. If I wrote a negative post about something bad in my life, this would not be authentic to the person I spend most of my time trying to become. If I wrote negative things, it would be a little bit like a celebration of these things. It’s more difficult to root out behaviors and ideas that we celebrate.
So, an audience is both a help and a hindrance, but I’m grateful to have one. It’s more fun to write to someone other than myself.
Challenge #2: The Pace
Now and then I do an experiment and post a link to this blog on Facebook. This produces many visitors, but most don’t come back the next day. The pace of the internet requires something new all of the time and a quick link to get there. That’s just the way it is. I acknowledge it and remind myself that I don’t write to be popular. I write because I want to write.
Recently I saw a comic in a newspaper with two old guys sitting together and one says to the other, “One thing that I have learned from the internet is that there are precious few original ideas.” How true.
How many paintings does one artist really have inside? How many poems did Emily Dickinson leave behind? Would your favorite author be interesting as a blogger?
Challenge #3: The focus on the present
Something in human nature is drawn to the never-ending story, not because it’s great, but because it changes. I have learned to write with an awareness of this and with an understanding that blogs are an incomplete record and measure of a person.
Many blog authors that I read have given up trying to write frequently. Some feel guilty and sad about it. I think it’s good to remember that writing about the present is limiting because we lack perspective when we’re busy living through something. Also, life is repetitive and full of events that aren’t interesting to write about. No one has something amazing to add to the world every day.
On the other hand, writing almost daily has helped me to find my writer’s voice. I have improved in my ability to express my thoughts. When I began, it would take me hours to write a few paragraphs. Now I spend much less time and I use fewer cliches. And I have some company along the way. Thanks for reading.
Richard and I went on a little weekend getaway to Salt Lake City to celebrate our 19th anniversary. Over dinner we played the memory game. What do you remember about Los Alamos? Westwind apartments? Austin? We didn’t make it to Arizona or Utah because there is too much to say and lots of food to eat downtown. We’ve lived in 7 homes in 4 states. It doesn’t seem like I have been married nearly half of my life, but there you go. Life moves quickly. It’s a blessing to have lived with my best friend, and I’m not just saying that because he still thinks that I look good in a swimsuit. 😉
Paige was asked to demonstrate a painting to be put up for auction at the school district foundation gala. She and another student participated. Each painted during the event and at the end they were asked to come to the front and tell the audience about their paintings. Then they were asked to walk around the room carrying the paintings while people bid for them. This is NOT what she thought she would have to do! Her painting sold for hundreds of dollars.
There were speakers, such as Noelle Picus-Pace, and that cute singer, Lexi Walker performed. This was the flier for the event.
I couldn’t get a ticket, so I helped Paige set up and took a quick picture of her progress before I left. Maybe I’ll post a picture of the finished painting if I can get it from her phone. She painted another version of a painting she did earlier this year. It’s taken from a photo she took near Snow Canyon. Richard and I are the hikers in the distance. It’s blurry and hours from being finished and not everything is shown, but this is the beginning of her project:
Well done, Paige! What an adventure. You are talented and brave, beautiful and strong!
Memories of the second grade field trip:
Mark and Tommy were my buddies.
Mark enjoyed the life flight, surgery, and x-ray simulators at the children’s museum.
We ate outside near the fountains. I packed a blue Gatorade in his lunch, which made him very happy.
We ditched the library tour and read comics instead:).
I brought these bouquets from the garden into the house today. They are so fragrant that I don’t know if they can stay.
Here are some things I am thankful for today:
I have been thinking about my changing role as a mother. The memories of babies’ days belong to parents. These bundled-up, nestled memories of our babies have become a treasure to me. I’ve written before that I consider these memories a gift that is uniquely mine. No one else will ever know exactly how it felt to be the mother of baby Paige, Daniel, Timothy, and Mark.
The middle years are full of shared memories. We can have dinnertime conversations remembering these times together. These are the playground years, the dance lesson and baseball years. I have loved these years, too. 2009 was a very special year because I realized that my children were all old enough to have adventures together and we did! We traveled over Arizona, exploring, learning, dancing, reading, and playing.This is my last year with two children in elementary school. These are such fun years!
The high school and middle school years have now arrived, where much of my children’s lives is a mystery to me. I don’t see them in their classes or how they interact with friends at lunch and I am not part of their recreation or social life. There are fun things about these years, too, such as Prom invitations, fun with friends, driving, and bigger achievements. I mourn the loss of time together, but I know it is good that they are growing independent and strong.
I invested that effort in their early years to help them to achieve this independence. I trusted that a good start would help them to be strong later. I never doubted the value of my role in their lives when they are young. Now that they are older and my role is less prominent, there is more insecurity. Did I teach them enough? Did I smother them? Are my questions about their school day enough to maintain a relationship? Did I just embarrass them in front of their friends?
As I move to a different place in the universe of my teenagers’ lives, I welcome assurances of the continuing worth of my role in their lives. Literature is a good comfort to me, as I can find these written words accessible whenever I need them. Several authors have become my midnight friends when the world is asleep and I need a conversation. Such questions as, “Do my little efforts really make a difference?” and “Is my work still a great work even though it’s backstage?” are important questions to me.
I finished Middlemarch last night. There are many themes that I enjoyed, but the reason I read the book was to study its heroine, Dorothea. A few of the last passages of the book meant a lot to me in my current thoughts.
Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother. But no one stated exactly what else that was in her power she ought rather to have done.
and…
Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature…spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life.
I’m not sad about the changes in my mothering. I am just going through a period of adjustment. If I focus on the principle of “incalculably diffusive influence,” I feel much more centered as I navigate these new roads from the concrete acts of mothering to the intangible. It’s a shift in ownership of memories. The baby time is mine, the middle years are shared. Their later years are increasingly their own, but a parent’s influence is forever.
When I read a book on the Kindle I don’t know how long it is when I begin because there aren’t page numbers, just “locations,” which I have never paid attention to. Last night after another evening of reading and making no progress, I looked up how many pages Middlemarch has: nearly 900. What a perfect metaphor for life right now. It’s hard to see the end as we slog through these last weeks of school.
I realized last night that I’m living in the Burnout Place. It’s an optional stop on the road, but I have set up camp there and I’m having a hard time packing up and leaving.
Today I’m taking time to remind myself that baseball season and the last month of school will not last forever. I am going to be patient and perhaps buy a few more meals by take-out in the next few weeks without guilt or apology. I am not going to dwell on negative words of others and remember that I am not the solution to every problem. I’m probably not the solution to ANY problem. I don’t have to be awesome! I just need to love this little family and feed them. My mascot for the month is Dory from Finding Nemo.
“Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…”
Did you know that I don’t actually know how to swim? It’s a good thing that I am just living in the land of metaphor this morning.
There is no writing going on in a whirlwind. But here are a couple of pictures of things we have been up to. Richard’s mom celebrated a birthday with us and we welcomed Sara home from her mission over the weekend.
We checked on Spring Lake and admired the foundation.
Richard’s parents stayed for a few days and then Russ’s family stayed. There was Indian food, the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, a piano recital, a district math test, baseball games, an overnight retreat in Midway, and a violin-piano duet in a church in Spanish Fork.
We put together an answer to an art-themed prom invitation.
Daniel’s friends spent several days in the basement constructing a physics project… with lots of Lego man spectators.
I’m glad the pace isn’t always this busy, but it was good to see Richard’s family and to be among so many good friends.
Today was a big day for the boys. Mark tried out being a catcher for the first time. He said it wasn’t as fun as he thought it would be. I’m pretty sure the color of the gear played a big part in his desire to be a catcher.
The fifth grade classes were recognized for their work in a program run by the police department today in an assembly with parents invited. Timothy really liked the police officer who taught him for 13 weeks. Timothy gave up all media for one week to fulfill one of the requirements in the class. He was told that if he did it, there would be an amazing prize at graduation. He received a water bottle. Um, I don’t know how he felt, but I was so disappointed!
It was a day of cheering for the boys. Hooray!