why i love blogging

Somewhere else in the blogsphere, in the pretty, pink section, there is a party going on entitled "Why I love blogging." I'm not participating officially, but unofficially, I wanted to weigh in. I started out in the pretty, pink section and love the creativity there. And then I found I wanted to have this voice, this real comment on my life, which isn't always so pretty or pink and I came here. I don't think this will turn into a segment to be recorded for the NPR program, This I Believe, but I've only started to write, so who knows!

A virtual friend posted about how no one wants the real answer to "How are you?" Actually I do want it . . . I don't listen very well to a litany of physical aches & pains, and I don't talk about my own either. But the other answers, the real ones about how your kids are really doing, or how crazy your life is or how you just did this amazing thing and you have to brag. . . well those are the things I do want to hear.

There's a certain "let it all hang out," 60's honesty that appeals to me. It seems blogs encourage this. Maybe it's self-indulgent. But then the 60's had a serious self-indulgent component along with peace, love, equality and the women's movement. There's a lot my generation has to answer for and a lot of good we can be proud of. Something about a weblog allows, encourages, forces one to share things. And I love it.

I see humor and irony in all sorts of odd things and circumstances. In real life try noticing someone's kid do something funny and kidlike, in say TJ Maxx, like crawl on the floor near your stall in the woman's bathroom. Remark on it to the mom, even sharing that you find it funny and you get the feeling the mom would be happier if you had just stayed quietly in your stall til they left!

In the blogosphere, commenting on a kid crawling on the floor in the ladies room is required. The funnier your telling, the better. See the irony in it, the humor, the relief it's not your kid or oh my it is my kid and what if he or she turns into a peeping tom. Here no one rolls their eyes or wishes you had stayed quietly in your stall! This is a community I really enjoy belonging to! It's a place I get to read stories, tell stories, see pretty pictures and make friends, even if I never actually meet them. There's feedback and love and a real pay-it-forward attitude.

And here I get into the "this I believe" part, I think people are basically good. And over and over I see that -- in really supportive, super supportive comments on posts where life is not as nice as the author wants, from people who may or may not have ever met said author! Or someone will compliment a stranger on her artwork and photos. Or friends are made by participating in art swaps where the generosity of the items sent is amazing and way over what anyone was expected to give. Both in the comments and the posts, this goodness and generosity comes out. I like being part of that. That's why I love blogging.

Oh and its a great place to hone one's writing ability!

Volunteering

Sometimes you volunteer to do stuff and you just get overwhelmed. And then sometimes you volunteer and get given a gift you never could have expected. That is how my week has been.

I have done a LOT of volunteering in my life! Right now, with my church, I am in volunteer burn-out. I do a lot and I thought it was ok. But today as I was making a sign for a talk we are giving, it hit me -- I am doing way too much for them.

Years ago I did the est training and volunteered with them for a while. One of their rules was you had to get more out of volunteering than you put in. I love that philosophy. How useful is a volunteer who resents it? Who wants to be a volunteer who is resentful?

So, when a friend was going out of town this week and asked me to look in on a relative of hers, I said yes. On the one hand it's my usual of always saying yes. On the other, she's my friend. She needed my help. And she would do the same for me.

As I was helping her relative with breakfast, we talked. I told stories of my life and she told stories of hers. I even asked her if she minded my stories. My daughter thinks I tell too many stories and I had been thinking of my daughter as we talked.

Instead of minding the stories, she said the most profound thing. She said, "Your stories are like melodies. You like telling them and hearing them again because the stories, like melodies are pretty and have appeal." I have never thought of my stories as songs or melodies.

And unlike my daughter's attitude that telling stories more than once is just wrong, my friend's relative had another take. It is that hearing or telling a story once makes it complete. But like a pretty song, telling it or hearing it again gives one the experience of when you heard it for the first time. Which obviously is good or you wouldn't repeat it!

And just writing it here takes me back a few days to the sunny dining room and feeling completely gotten and appreciated. It cancels out the feeling of burn-out I had when I sat down to post. It's a wonderful story to tell and I will probably tell it again. Just not to my daughter!

Kids and the Weather

Kids may be a little like New England weather. Don't like it, wait 10 minutes, it will change. And that's what's happened. I got a phone message from my daughter yesterday. The paper she has stressed out about, the one she was going to quit college over, she got a 95. And lots of positive comments from the professor. The feeling she would never be able to study abroad while an undergraduate, was dealt with today when she was accepted in a 4 week mini-abroad to Eastern Europe. I can let go for now.

My son called every night on his drive to Yosemite. He was letting me hold on just a bit. He discovered he could drive 12 hour days. There's family precedent on my DH's side and it worried me a bit that ERR would drive himself off an overpass. He didn't. His accommodations seemed even odder than my forays into cheap motels. When he told me he thought he might stay at a nicer place the next night, some place like Motel 6, I hesitated to ask where he had been staying. I guess Motel 6 seems a big step up from places that rent for $24 a night!

I haven't heard from him since he started the job. (No cell phone, limited internet access, I hope he hasn't been eaten by bears). But the morning he was driving into the park to check in, he told me, "Mom, I don't know why I took this job. But I know why I drove out here. The desert is an amazing place."

I do not know if I will ever not worry about my kids. But this week has reminded me that there's an equilibrium and when things have been stormy for them, pretty soon, like the weather, it changes to sunny skies.

Holding On & Letting Go

It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon . . .

Last Saturday my daughter came home to get fitted for contacts lenses. Perhaps we should have waited a month til the end of the semester. But it is nice to be able to see the blackboard and know who you are waving to.

Coming home may have been too much of a contrast with her school life. This past week has been real tough for her. She had a paper due (since she is taking 4 English courses this semester to complete her Writing, Publishing, Literature major, when doesn't she have a paper due?) and it was not going well. I even promised she did not have to return to school next year. But in the meantime, please eat something.

The paper got completed and turned in on time. She took herself out to eat with my credit card, things were good for a little while.

Then the left contact lenses started giving her a hard time. It hurt, it wouldn't go in, it wouldn't come out. No I was not mad that I had spent the money on them. Yes, I was pretty sure the doctor could sort them out and give her a new one that fit better when she sees him in another week. Why don't you take them both out and just take a nap.

My daughter's week was all about holding on. (r)

My son's was about letting go. (l)

On Thursday morning my son got in his car and drove west toward Yosemite, where he has a job as cook's helper at the Yosemite Lodge. On Wednesday night after everything was packed, he sat down next to me and said, "I don't think this is where I want to go."

It is a fine line between pushing my kids to do what they have agreed to do and telling them it is ok to bag it. The rules are clear. They have to have given it a lot of thought and prayer. I want them to be happy. I want them to be good people.

We talked. He decided to go anyway. If he hates it, he can come home (as long as he gives them adequate notice). I understand his dilemma. He's tired of people going ga ga about Yosemite. The desert is what calls to him -- he would prefer to be at Joshua Tree National Monument, or Death Valley National Park. And he's so done with culinary. Summer jobs since HS, college work-study in the dish-room, he's just not that into food! He has a degree in environmental studies. Just being at Yosemite may open lots of doors. He knows it's a good thing to go -- he just has to find the balance between head and heart.

I wanted to hold on to my son and let go of my daughter, but that's not what my job was this week.

Taxes

I'm taking a break from taxes.

I must make it perfectly clear, I do not do my own taxes. I hyperventilate at the sight of them. I send them to a wonderful woman who happily deals with all that.

I am in one room and my son is in the adjoining room. He is muttering, peeping, and asking me questions like, "Why don't they speak English?" and "Is there a reason these forms are so confusing?" For which I have no good answer. Maybe tax people think differently from us?

I'm glad I can help him a little. Maybe just being here while he works on them is useful. So many of my answers are, "Uh, have you looked at the instructions?" I used to do his taxes when he was in college. I needed them for financial aid forms, he was someplace else, I had the W-2's, eh I just did them.

The deadline for financial aid is coming up, so now, I'm doing my daughter's taxes. 1040ez really is that. State forms are more complex. I've completed one, but have yet to look at the state we don't live in, where she worked as a summer camp counselor. The camp is probably required to take out state income tax, but I wish they wouldn't. I have to go to a lot of effort to get her $67.43 back!

Time to go get the paperbag, just in case I need to breathe into it!

I will miss him

There's a lot they don't teach you at mothering school.

They don't teach you that wanting them to grow up to be productive, independent adults does not make it a bit easier when they take a job on the other side of the country.

When my son was 12 years old, I walked into his room. Probably to put some laundry away. I had to walk out quickly or explain why I was crying for no understandable reason. You see, I looked at him, and he was no longer a little boy. He wasn't grown up, but he had turned some corner. Even knowing this, half his life ago, it never occurred to me and they never told me in mothering school if you do a good enough job and like your kids, you just might want them to stay at home forever.

They do tell you you have to let your kids go. I know this. My mom was always so adamant that sons really need to be independent at 18, though daughters will always be there. She didn't get it quite right. My brother has only now moved out of her neighborhood, and I was the one who left home at 18!

Roots and Wings. You have to give them roots to feel firmly planted in a place, a philosophy, a religion, a family, a community, something that is grounded. You also have to give them wings to soar in their imagination, in travel, in new ideas, in education, in love and friendship, a sense of limitless possibilities.

So next week, my son heads off with all the worldly goods he can fit in his compact car to take a job in another beautiful place. His new job is in a field he is ready to leave, but he hopes the place, a national park, will offer more opportunities to use what he studied in college. That part I am really happy for! Actually, I'm happy for everything, the independence, the need to be his own person, to find that calling that makes him happy to get up in the morning.

I'll just miss him.

*Masters of Mothering Arts -- cuz it sure ain't a science!

There's a lot they don't teach you at mothering school. I'm pretty sure no one gets a Master's Degree, but it would be nice.

Think of it -- Graduate level courses, a practicum, internships, a required thesis paper on something you actually know in your bones; recognition you have done a good job; a set of letters that signify you have gone beyond the basics of feeding and clothing them; acknowedgment they have become exceptional people because of your great work, not in spite of it! Your Name, MMA.* Maybe even deference and the best table at hip restaurants.

Nancy Friday states in My Mother, My Self that children survive if they get good enough mothering. This was helpful to me. I figured I could be "good enough."

But I actually viewed myself as a really good, exceptional mother. You know, one of the best. I said that to my daughter while we were traveling last January. Her face . . . then her laugh . . . then her exclamation that I was joking wasn't I, made me revise my view of my mothering skills.

Interestingly enough, my feelings weren't hurt. I was just sorry that what I had taken for great mothering was not seen the same from her side of the (sometimes closed) door. I wanted her to have experienced me as an exceptional mom -- not for the accolades or great tables at fancy restaurants -- because I love her so much and wanted to give her my best.

But mothering is a dance. I love to waltz, my daughter is a tap dancer. My mom is a tap dancer, I never learned the steps. I know what would qualify as great mothering if it was directed toward me. If asked, I bet my daughter could say the same. (Actually when she was 13 she told me the kind of mother she would be. It didn't look a lot like me). What is considered wonderful by one daughter, is considered laughable by another!

This post started as a comment on my son leaving home. Obviously I got a bit off track. Tomorrow I will start my post the same way, "There's a lot they don't teach you at mothering school."