blogging

Six years

Saturday marked six years that I have been blogging in this space.  It knocks the wind out of me to consider that when I started A Design So Vast, Grace was 3 and Whit was 1.  I began this blog to record the small moments of my parenting life I worried I would forget.  In retrospect (and only in retrospect) I realize that this was a concrete effort to engage in the right now of my life.  It turns out to have been an effort that has changed my life enormously.  I still struggle mightily with the effort to be here now, but I am much more present in my days than I was six years ago.  I know that the practice of writing here is in large part responsible for that shift.  On this screen, and in the many pages that writing here has inspired, my subject chose me.  Immersing myself in that subject – my own ordinary life, replete with muck and also magic – has changed every single thing about me and how I live.  I cannot express how grateful I am for that.  And your generous thoughts, wise input, and probing questions are a huge part of that.  So, thank you, all of you, for being an essential part of this huge change.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

For the last couple of years I have marked this anniversary by asking you for questions: is there anything you want to know, or to hear more about?  Please, honestly, let me know … I love hearing what is on your mind.


 

The story I can’t stop telling

I have a new piece on the Huffington Post, The Story I Can’t Stop Telling.  It’s a story which will be very familiar to anyone who’s read anything I write here.

And I really can’t stop telling it.  While swimming this afternoon, Whit hopped in one end of the pool while I happened to be walking by.  I watched him set out to swim the whole length, which he did, inelegantly but without stopping.  I hadn’t told him I was watching, so I didn’t think he knew.  But when he got to the other end, he hauled himself up by his still-narrow shoulders, water sluicing off his white back.  I smiled at the back of his head and then was startled when he turned to look at – or maybe for – me.  I gave him a thumbs up and a big smile and his grin in return was incandescent.  He still wants to know I’m watching him.

I know these days are numbered, and the drumbeat sound of their passage deafens me.  The sweetness overwhelms me and makes me cry.  And all I know how to do is to pay close attention, to watch and listen and love deeply, and then to write it all down.

To write down the story I can’t stop telling.

Happy birthday, Priscilla!

Update: I’m happy that Catherine, of comment #19, won Priscilla’s book in my giveaway.  Congratulations, Catherine – I can’t wait to hear how you like it!

I’m thrilled to be participating in a blog party for Priscilla Warner‘s birthday.  I read Priscilla’s book, Learning to Breathe, last year, and was immensely moved by it.  I later read her first book, The Faith Club, in anticipation of our family trip to Jerusalem, and learned a lot of valuable information about the three religions that intersect so richly – and with such sparks – in the winding streets we walked in December.

Leaning to Breathe was one of those books that I think about every day.  It was nothing less than a light for me, a beacon showing me the path, an invisible hand on my shoulder reassuring me that I am not alone in my sometimes-frantic, often-agitated search for a something I know is that even though I can’t quite name it yet.

Some of the greatest things in life don’t have to be so dramatic … It’s in the quiet moments that our lives are shaped.  In homes, in cribs, in bedrooms, in the little things.  That’s where it all happens.

This is my favorite passage from Learning to Breathe, and is one of the book’s many such intimate epiphanies.  I’ve had the good fortune to get to know Priscilla through email since I read her book, and she’s every bit as delightful, warm, human, and inspirational as I had imagined.  Furthermore, she has both the same name and same home town as my beloved grandmother, a small coincidence that nevertheless made me feel even closer to her.  I’m thrilled to add my voice to the chorus that is chanting:

Happy birthday, Priscilla!

As part of this celebration, I’m thrilled to give away a copy of Priscilla’s book.  If you relate to any of what I write here, I can assure you you will be touched by Priscilla’s story of learning to breathe, both literally and metaphorically.  Please leave a comment and that will enter you into the giveaway.  I can’t emphasize how meaningful Priscilla’s book is; I think everybody should read it.

In addition to this giveaway, Priscilla is hosting a wonderful birthday giveaway on her blog.  She is giving away one of her buddha bracelets, a tibetan singing bowl, her favorite candle, nirvana Belgian chocolate, and a CD by Bellruth Naparstek, her guided imagery guru.  Please click over to Priscilla’s blog to participate.  Some other writers who join me in celebrating Priscilla are there as well.  It is my honor to share in this wave of love towards someone who I am proud to call my teacher.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, Priscilla, for all that you are, to me to so many.

On my mind lately

(my endless task, in the golden light of dusk last week)

Once in a while I like to share pieces of loveliness that I’ve found out here in the wild and wonderful ether, as well as small things that are on my mind.

I’m hugely honored to be featured in Amy Kessel’s glorious Unfurling series.  All of her interviews are wonderful, so I encourage you to click through and read them all!  What a privilege to be among these brilliant, wise women.

Hilary reminds us that life is always now or never.

Bindu explores how each of us finds our own ways of taking refuge.

Roxane’s beautiful love letter to Jerusalem, a city I am pleased I can now imagine first-hand.

I tweeted recently that I am a Myers-Briggs INFJ.  I’ve never met another one in real life.  I was initially startled, and then not at all, when several of my very favorite on-line friends responded that they too were INFJs.  Freed of the constraints of real life and geographic location, it makes total sense to me that I’d gravitate towards truly kindred spirits.

A friend recently lent me the third issue of Kinfolk.  I’m absolutely smitten.

I’m also working my way through a stack of Wendell Berry’s works.  I have long loved his poems (here, here, here) but recently felt pulled to read much more of his writing: essays, fiction, poetry.

What is on your mind these days?  Any wonderful links to share?  And what is your Myers-Briggs type, if you know it?

Letting go of something big

From the outside, my life looks entirely the same as it did in January.  But inside, a lot has changed.  Assumptions I had about stability and the path forward have been jostled around, and the pieces are still settling into their new pattern, like the shards of sparkle inside a kaleidoscope in motion before they decide on their positions.

One thing I did is let go of something big in my writing life.  I let go of my commitment to and focus on publishing a book.  This was a long time coming.  You see, two years ago, I signed with a fabulous agent.  Then I parted ways with that agent because I realized I needed to write this book before I tried to sell it.  So I wrote a memoir.  The manuscript sits in a box on the floor of my office.  Three dear, brilliant, loyal friends read it (you know who you are, and thank you, again).  It is 350 pages long.  I queried a few agents.  I was rejected by all of them, mostly kindly and often using the excuse that memoir was an incredibly difficult category right now.  Whether that was the truth or a gentle way to let me down, I’ll never know. What I know is I didn’t sign an agent.

And you know what?  I let go.  In my querying I realized I didn’t truly believe in my memoir.  My story is quiet, and unremarkable, and while I think it has a universal message, I also very much doubt the validity of it to be published into a book.  So I put it away.

The relief was palpable.  Almost instant.  When I really sat still and thought about what kind of writing I want to do, I always come back to this place.  This is what I want to write.  I want to blog.  I have several essays I’m trying to place, so I like that kind of work, too.  I am working on a novel, and I enjoy that process, mostly because I am immensely fortunate to get to do it with Dani Shapiro‘s wise and excellent instruction.  But increasingly, I suspect that what I am is a blogger. I love this form, I love this community, and I am hugely enriched by the thoughtful input of those lovely spirits who read what I write here.

Once I let go of the goal I had attached myself to so ferociously, I felt both sorrow and liberation.  Commingled grief and relief, as I wrote to a friend.  It is hard to accept that I probably won’t publish a book.  But it is also a wonder to realize that this, right here, this, that I’ve been doing for almost five years, this is the writing my heart leans towards.

Two honest and lucid posts about this very topic inspired me to put this into words:  Nina Badzin’s post about how she’s not an aspiring novelist, at least for now and Erin Murray’s post that reminds me of Anne Lamott’s assertion that the writing itself is the reward.  Thank you to Nina and Erin for providing much-needed companionship on an often-lonely road, and for helping me articulate something that i realized several months ago but hadn’t yet put into words.