Hello, again

It’s been over two years since I last posted on this blog.  And the last draft that I had written was an exercise on writing a new future for a character each day.  I didn’t even get the first day of the exercise published!  Just ‘shows to go ya’ that discipline is not one of my strongest elements.

In the last two years, I have moved out of Asheville, gotten engaged, got a new job teaching (my favorite excuse to not write), got married, bought a house and had a kid.

Now, home on maternity leave, I am once again re-enlivened to focus on writing.  What will I write on this blog? About writing, like I originally intended? About being a mom, or figuring out how to be a mom?  I don’t know.  There are billions of blogs out there about both topics and even now, I feel overwhelmed by the pressure of trying to stand out, to be special, to be different.  But that is what I am trying to overcome – this writing blog is for me, and I will just do what I do, write whatever I write that day – just to be writing, because I am happier when I do.

Write to write, not to compete.

I want to tell my daughter that she can be whatever she wants to be; I want for her to pursue and work hard at what makes her happy, and I want to be able to tell her those things from a place of experience, not of regret.

So, I will now go make dinner: stuffed tomatoes with quinoa, zucchini, squash, feta and fennel, and continue to work on being the best wife, mother, teacher and writer that I can be.

Later, or tomorrow, or whenever I get to it again, I will write the story I told my girl yesterday.  She is 5 weeks old and I am practicing telling her stories.  Yesterday was about Frederick the Frog and how he wants to travel the world but there are some obstacles in his way.  My mind kept going to the fact that the dangers often win for the poor little frogs in my yard, but that is not the story I want to tell my girl, so I will make it about perseverance and hard work and the importance of hopes and dreams.  Maybe I can learn a little something from Frederick myself.