@ Home in the World

Hey! Check this out.

I went to high school with these guys. Most of them, anyway.

Someone sent me that article a while ago. At the time I had a little fun looking up their website, tracking down the ad they did (I had not seen it before, have you?), and downloading the songs (added bonus: I actually like this kind of music). Then I promptly forgot about the whole thing. Well, except for the music, which is kinda fun. 

A couple of days ago, through a weird quirk of memory I realized I have to pass this stuff on.

Have to.

Ever have a completely random memory pop into your head from seemingly nowhere? No? Odd, it happens to me all the time.

Anyway, I remembered that once upon an, oh so very long time ago, I had one of those completely pie-in-the-sky conversations with one of these guys about what we wanted to do after high school. Of course, he wanted to be a musician and I wanted to be a writer, so I half-jokingly promised that if he ever made it big, I would write about it.

Funny how life works sometimes.

Coyote Ugly

When I was a child, I had a recurring nightmare of being in a car and realizing that, though it was moving, no one was driving. Occasionally, I'd be driving, only to find that the steering wheel was actually a toy letter wheel and that the car was out of control. Only as an adult did I come to really understand the meaning of that dream.

Tigger has a somewhat irrational fear of coyotes and "woofs." Wild things he imagines lurking in our back yard at night, plotting to get in. His dreams often involve coyotes, they seem to represent whatever perceived menace exists in his real life. I'm not sure how these creatures came to be his chosen boogieman, I know that he's heard a lot about them around the neighborhood. The neighbor with the dog encountered one in the woods on her morning walk. Another neighbor exclaiming "Lisse, did you know there was a COYOTE in your FRONT YARD this morning? He was HUGE!"  Piper and I suspect that it was really the dog of yet a third neighbor, having escaped his yard.

Coyotes seem out of place here in Massachusetts. I associate them with the with the West, Native American folklore, and wild, desperate places. They returned here a number of years ago, their presence heralded by the disappearance of several domestic cats. I'd heard the talk, but they still seemed like mythical creatures to me, because I had never seen one. Until last night.

The shadow appeared crossing the opposite lanes of the highway, eyeshine glowing green. It had an odd gait, like its legs were too big for its body. Brought up short by the guard rail, he quickly slithered underneath it and passed in front of my car.

"Look boys, a coyote! A real coyote!"

The boys were excited. It resembled a woollier verson of my brother's German Shepard but was clearly wild, rather than groomed like a dog. It was huge. We watched the animal dash across the rest of the highway and disappear into the marsh.

"So," I asked as we drove on, "where do you think he was going?"

"To meet his friends and go howl at the moon," suggested Tigger.

"Why do you think they howl at the moon?"

"To scare people away," suggested Tigger.

"What if it's to call other groups?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah."

"What do you think they were calling about?"

"I don't know."

"Well," I said, "think about it. Make up a story"

"Ooh, yeah! When we do Writing Workshop (in his class) I can write a story about coyotes."

Yes, that's it, I thought. Write it down. Get out what ever ugliness these creatures represent. Cast your demons on paper and set them free.

But of course, I said none of that to Tigger as he went on with his story.

And as he talked we made our way home, following the rising full moon.

OMG, I Won!

Look, I won. How cool is that?

Low Notes

I've never been much of an opera fan, but listening to the excerpts of Luciano Pavarotti during the numerous NPR tributes to him, gave me the chills. I don't think you have to be an opera fan to appreciate that kind of power and emotion.

But all that singing drowned out the news that Madeline L'Engle also died Thursday. She was a favorite author of mine and one of the few I have met. She came to do a reading/signing at our tiny little local bookstore several years ago at the request of someone who spent summers here, but knew her in Manhattan. I remember cutting an evening class I was taking at the time to attend the event. It was a magical October evening, the room was compeletely packed, and I was impressed at how encouraging she was of the children in the audience, many of whom expressed a desire to be a writer.  How lucky I would have been to meet her at age 10.

As a teenager, It took me a couple of readings to get the full message of A Wrinkle in Time, but as the oldest and perhaps least secure child with an unbreakable father-daughter bond (even in death), I saw a lot of myself in Meg. I also got my first memorable glimpse of a working mother in Mrs. Murray, conducting experiments in an at-home lab and cooking over a bunsen burner.

But I came to really know L'Engle as an adult through her Crosswicks Journal series, named after her home in Connecticut. In them, she shared her experiences trying to get published, her experiences raising a family while trying to write, and minding a general store with her husband Hugh Franklin, her life after losing her mother, and then her husband, and reflections on her relationship with God.

It is not mentioned in the New York Times tribute and barely in the Washington Post, but she is often referred to as a Christian mystic; someone who has experienced God. It was L'Engle's writings that persuaded me to try the Anglican/Episcopal Church when I was looking for somewhere more welcoming of my humanity than the Catholic Church. 

Her relationship with God was not without its struggles, and although I have read many, many of her spiritual explorations, it is this quote from the first Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet that sticks in my mind and best defines my own journey:

"...I really and truly believe in God with all kinds of doubts."

Thank you Madeline, for being so gracious, for sharing your struggles as a writer, mother, and believer.

___________________________________

An older, but more complex discussion of Madeline L'Engle can be found at Half Changed World.

Blog Ambition

I have not abandoned my blog.

I know what it looks like, but I swear I haven't.

I sort of lost momemtum once I realized that I would not be able to go to Blogher. It was very disappointing because I was in the throes of the  "where is this blog going?" question and I was hoping for some rejuvenation (I also wanted to meet some of the other Soccer Moms).  Originally, that question was put to me by Piper when I was talking about some of the recognition I had gotten lately, and how the whole social networking works online and some the bloggers I read who had been mentioned in the mainstream media or had gotten a book deal of some kind.

"You want to make it big doing this, don't you?" asked Piper (incredulously).

I didn't really know what to say to that. What does that even mean in the blog world? Ad revenue? Recogniton? A publisher? I don't know. There are thousands and thousands of blogs out there, and quite a few adoption blogs, too. So where is this going?

I started out doing this for myself, and because friends said "you should write this down somewhere" when I told some of my stories (probably for the umpteenth time). I liked the idea of being able to see my words "in print." Would I just love to see my name on a byline in the MSM? Hell yeah, but I haven't even figured out what kind of writer I really am.

And this is where I start to get angry, because it touches on one of the few regrets I really have in my life - not having my *&*(^* together when it came time to choose a college and a major; not getting good advice from the HS councilor or my mother; not being allowed to apply to Emerson where I might I have gotten the writing training I was looking for when I became an English major; having my "advisor" in college (a nun), upon being told that I was choosing an English major because I didn't know what else to do, say "well that's a stupid reason," but not give me any other guidance for exploring my options.

Quick aside: That kind of bullying and belittling is a major reason I am not raising my children Catholic or sending them to Catholic schools. Somehow the Irish Catholics of my parents' and their parents' generations felt this was an acceptable way to treat others, especially children. It is a major reason I'm not all that close to my family and I don't want my kids to go through that. It's also a big reason for the work I do to support the public schools.  /end rant

Wow, when I get really mad, the words come quickly. Ahem.

For reasons closely related to the stuff I was just ranting about up there, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I have any ambitions at all for this blog, or myself, for that matter. Embarrassed, because next I will hear that (remarkably familiar) voice in my head that says "Who do you think you are?" Or worse, just flat out laughter. Yeah, I'm the kid who took that "pride is a sin" lesson to heart, the one who elevated being humble to a crippling art form. The one who adopted self-deprecation as a defense mechanism around the age of 10. Poke fun at yourself before someone points out your flaws, that way you own them and they can't be used against you.

And I know this has hurt me in the past. Want a promotion? For god's sakes don't tell anybody, they might laugh you out of the building. And if you go for that promotion and don't get it? Well, then, you have to leave the company, because now everyone knows that you are a (alltogethernow) FAILURE. Gad, my 20s were hell.

One day, Piper, after listening to a hysterical fretting session that started with concern about our brand new two-year old acting like a two-year old in front of my mother who already thought I was going to fail as a mom because I wasn't tough enough, said just about the most important thing that anyone has ever said to me. "You are not a failure. Since I've known you, you have accomplished almost everything you set out to do."

I had to stop right there, in that Moscow hotel room three Metro stops from Red Square - a place I had wanted to see since high school, look at the child we had just successfully adopted, think about the rest of my life, and realize that Piper was right.

All of this is a bit ridiculous now. I know I'm a good writer, even though I agonize over every word. I can put together an excellent argument when I want to and I do have ideas, not so much for this blog, but for other writing projects. I just need a little guidance. Some of these projects may get put on hold or progress more slowly because of the new ID job I just accepted, but at least I will not have to worry about justifying the money spent on web hosting, a new camera, design help, or hey, a conference fee.

I haven't abandoned blogging, and I'm not going to because I love it. I love the stories; mine and many others. I love the multimedia, multiple project, moving in lots of directions at once aspect of the blogosphere. This whole thing didn't even exist when I first knew I wanted to be a writer in the 5th grade. But I've always been a late bloomer. Time and technology are my friends.

I'm 40 years old and I'm a writer. Dammit.

Five Minutes of Fury

Well, I didn't get to Blogher, or the Police concert at Fenway this weekend, but I did experience my first hailstorm. A thunderstorm literally blew through here, looking quite a bit like a hurricane and was gone five minutes later, leaving marble-sized hail to melt in the returning sunshine. How I got to be this age without ever seeing hail before is a mystery.

I am still stressing, not sleeping well over my work life. But I have also been battling a not quite cold that had left me without energy and focus. I really hate sinus stuff. There's a lot of staring at a blank screen and not having any thoughts come.  I've read some, which put a dent in the pile.  I spent most of this weekend with my nose in one book or the other. I don't think I've really done that since before I had kids, and in some ways it felt good to get completely lost in another world again.

It's a weird feeling trying to get motivated again. Like being hungry but utterly bored with everything in the fridge.

My keyboard is going. That makes it even more frustrating to sit down and write something. In other news, my Pumpkin thinks he's Curious George - climbing trees, eating honey sandwiches, speaking with unintelligible squeakiness.

Off to buy some more bananas.

I am NOT Cranky!

The Pumpkin has been on a tear for 3 days now. I think it has something to do with the fact that he is being nudged out of his non-communicative comfort zone by his own development and the adults around him. I think he might be scared.

Or maybe like Tigger often does, he's feeding off me. I'm doing lots of flailing about regarding my career, where this blogging thing is going, and whether finishing our patio is a good use of our money right now.

It's been four years since I decided not to return to work full-time. I've had some great contract projects and some not so great ones, but I've still felt very adrift and directionless without the workplace routine. But there's no denying that said routine will be very difficult now for all involved, because it would require a commute of an hour each way. There's just not my kind of work anywhere near where I live and yet I wouldn't move for anything, especially a job. Unless it was a job in Europe.

My kids will both be in school full-time in a month and a half. I should be doing something productive and gainful with that time. I enjoy working, but I also enjoy being there when my kids and the neighbor's kids come home from school. I'm worried about P in Kindergarten. I'm worried that full time school and mom not being home until 6 or 7 will be too much for him. I'm worried that I'm just telling myself that to justify my inertia.

I keep thinking the answers are going to come to me, as they used to do before I had kids. I would just ruminate on something until the solution became obvious. Sigh. My brain is so different now. So full of child chatter. Or maybe I secretly have the answer and don't want to accept it.

Meanwhile this is affecting my ability to get other things done. For instance, I've been working on the next installment of our adoption story since Tuesday.  Hopefully I'll be able to get it right next week.

103

I'll confess to being a Sitemeter junkie. Not so much for the hit count, which is never that high, but more for the locations the vistors have come from and what links or searches brought them here. Last night though, I opened the page and saw a number for the day that I had never seen before: 103. Wha-- Something must have happened.

Well, It turns out that Vodkarella nominated me for a Perfect Post award for Bad Words, a post I wrote a few days ago about labels. Wow! That's the magic of writing, you just never know who is going to read what you put out there and how they will react. Here is the rest of the list of award winners with some really good reads among them.

Thank you. I'm honored and I promise to share the wealth soon.

Bad Words

Half the words I might use to describe myself are frequently said with a sneer by varying percentages of the population. Words like Liberal, Feminist, Working Mother, and occasionally (for me), Stay at Home Mother. There's also the word I can't use, for fear it will be misconstrued. By the way, with this sort of blatant discrimination still going on in 2007, you better believe I'm a feminist.

A post from PunditMom the other day got me thinking of the word MommyBlogger. It's not a word I use because as she says:

Whoever came up with the phrase "mommy blogger" was not trying to do us any favors.

Yet, I feel slightly guilty because I didn't start blogging until after I became a mother. I wanted a place to put the story of our adoptions after a number of people responded to my stories with "You should write this down somewhere." And though I do write about that experience and the adjustments our family has made along the way, I find myself writing a great deal more about social issues than I do about our day to day experiences.

However, most of those issues would be nearly invisible to me without the experience of being a mother. Yes, I've always been a politcal junkie, but I would never have known how hard it is, for instance, for a mother to find a new, career-oriented job unless I experienced myself. I would never have seen the experience of the crying child on the airplane as anything more than a nuisance if I hadn't been through it. Trying to get around Boston with a stroller was a real eye-opener.

It's been weird - like walking a mile in someone else's shoes and suddenly realizing that those shoes fit me.

Yes, the term MommyBlogger is often used disparagingly, but in the few short months that I've been blogging, I've seen some MommyBloggers do some really cool things. And we're not just talking to ourselves, we're talking to voters, politicians, and policy makers. We're talking to corporations and product makers. And it's not just the writing, it's the videos, the podcasting, the networking sites, the online magazines - forget MommyBlogging, let's call it

Mama Media 

More to Come....

On Friday afternoon I'll be posting an interview with Maria Liberti who is doing a virtual book tour to promote her book The Basic Art of Italian Cooking.

This is part of an effort to expand the "other travels" part of @ Home in the World. My trip to Italy was the beginning of the change in the way that I looked at the world, and though I haven't written much about it yet, I'm excited about this interview because it illustrates some of the ways that the cultures and the foods that we are exposed to shape us in ways we don't always think about.