5.10.2007

it is nice to be appreciated, when it comes. it takes me off guard these days. i used to have such ego about my writing. i still understand that i write well, but feel so inadequate in terms of my rate of production that i hardly feel like a real or decent writer. i can make all the promises to myself that i want about writing more or writing everyday, but it still doesn't come. i have to take the small steps, make tiny goals in order to achieve anything at all.

my days are already so chock full of so much to do. i am running around in circles, trying desperately to do everything to be done, searching up and down, paying bills, running errands, zoning out in front of the computer. it takes such time to move. especially with small children - my own personal two-bodied demolition crew. i move frantically trying to get them out of the house, trying to post at my local board, trying to eat and do laundry. i plan things and go to meetings.

i am at this moment on the brink of joining the food co-op board, which will require that i meet once a month with the others to plan and discuss. as though i really needed more to do. i clean my house, knit, drink beer in the late nights when everyone is asleep.

my whole life these days is doing. what will happen to me when it is all done? i am trying to find a future in the cracks between activities in order to ensure that i am not lonely and languishing years from now when my eggs have fled the nest. i am attempting to plan out a memoir and a novel, finish a chap book of my february poems, write each monthly co-op newsletter, volunteer my time in the hopes that one day what i do can define me in a career. i create cards and bags, plan to finish the quilt one day, hope that i might sell something at some point, enough to furnish the rent should i need to. it is not likely to happen, but i have big dreams nonetheless. or perhaps they're small dreams.

i have always been excessively good at poo-pooing my ambitions, noting their improbability. it makes me so proud of my sisters and my husband to see them doing what they dream. i have far too many interests in too many directions to do much of anything at all. i become paralyzed by possibility. it is quite the lousy lot. i should, in fact, know better. but i don't really know what i want. i want too much. i want everything. i want nothing more than what i've got. i am where i planned to be. or so it would seem. perhaps this was the path of least resistance and it simply fit me well. i don't know. it is what it is. i do what i do.

i attempt to feign knowledge of the future, but really i'm just attempting to put anything in a place where a career might land that i may have something to put on a resume. at the same time, i have no interest in forming a career. i can rationalize all this crazy talk with this idea that what i do is explore my world and try things out, making me a more balanced, well-rounded, experienced person in the long run, making life my major and participating in communal systems my career.

and then tonight i was asked to come to a literary group after some folks liked my poems. it has been so long since i'd been to a poetry reading. this one was quite nice, filled with older people with quiet, non-slam poetry filled with meaning and beautiful imagery and exquisite language. i felt at home with my writing, like i belonged, like i was on par. and then the compliment. i hadn't the heart to tell her that there is no way i can participate in one more thing these days, my plate is already so so full. already there is hardly time to sit and think or to put those thoughts in the blog.

i had always intended this to be more interesting in terms of the writing than a regular blog, but i think i've fucked it up this go round and the incessant paragraph is probably more than overwhelming. perhaps it is time to break it up. there. i've done it, though i'm terrible at paragraphs.

long ago, i had a point. i had wanted to talk about all my confusion these days, how i feel this gap between my husband and i, how i almost think i'm making it up. but i forgot and didn't know how to get there anyway. i am too busy doing to think too much. i am too busy doing to understand the meaning in my life or to feel connected. i am out the door.