I'm starting a blog.
*earth-shattering thunder*
The idea has been percolating for a while, and it's probably easier for me to define what I know this blog won't be than to define what it will be (because I have a feeling that what it will be is going to unfurl and grow as I do).
This blog won't be a flowery account of life as a home-schooling mom. It won't draw a huge following due to its author's uncanny wit and insights. And it sure as sausage won't be scholarly.
No. In a nutshell, I just need a creative outlet. Something deep has been stirring in me, something that I've been brushing aside and burying beneath dirty socks and The Tyranny of the Urgent. I need to tear open a space in my life to be creative. I feel like I'm in an intense season (of work/responsibility/non-glamour) encircled by a broader season (of work/responsibility/non-glamour). Specifically, I have three young children on whom I spend much of my energy, and in this season of diapers, meals, snot, vomit, laughter, bedtimes, bedtimes, oh-please-go-to-bed times, snacks, refereeing, curiosity, bike riding, scraped knees, feeling my heart burst wide open, and longing for the days when going to the bathroom was a private event, we're moving to Seattle. There's simply a lot to do right now.
In this season of endless tasks, it's easy to become robotic. Embracing this season of life (which I do, with joy!), can easily become a necessities-only lifestyle in which my top priorities are, well, rather mundane. It becomes easier to shut out some of my 'unnecessary' gifts and longings, because the pain of trying to make space for them and then failing due to my lack of energy/time is stifling.
This might not make sense right now, and that's alright. I don't want another lot in life. I want to thrive here and now, and I need to have the glasses to see the meaning and beauty all around me, in the midst of what I am doing. I want to make, no demand, space in my life for poetry and music and theology and prayer. Things less pragmatic than making the next meal, but no less vital.
This blog may be a vent for me as I step along this new journey of a cross-border move. It may be a vent of catharsis, and it may be a way to keep in touch with dear, dear souls miles away. It may also be a new creative venture, risky because I have been inspired by the writing of many others and do not have their gift with words. I'd like to work on it, though, so this is my try. It's risky to try, but I've been a perfectionist most of my life and I want to leap and give this a try even if I won't be great at it. Leap. Risk. These are words that are resonating in my life.
