Guess Who’s Back: Back Again
Several weeks ago, or months (I have no concept of time, as you know), I stopped writing. You may have noticed. You may not have noticed. If you’ve been here long enough, maybe you float in and out. Maybe you’ll find yourself here. Maybe you didn’t notice and aren’t even reading this, or maybe you’re reading it ten years in the future, and your life looks very different. Perhaps, mine does too. I always said I’d never leave here. And I want you to know that it still rings true. I started this blog in March, 2010 to address a VERY deep dry spell with writing and photography. Back then, and I guess as of now, that was my very deepest and darkest and vast writing spell. It was terrifying to think I’d never come back to these very words on fire at my fingertips. It’s been rather terrifying to see the world change and for people to have much shorter attention spans. It’s been terrifying to see myself change, and have a shorter attention span. I still read long writing, though.
If It’s Good Enough
And I can’t promise this will be good enough. But it is enough, because I am writing. I started writing this post months ago. It was about another dry spell – movies. Those original words don’t matter now, although these photos are from the original post. Who knows? Maybe down the line, or in the immediate future, I’ll fill in more blanks with more stories and consistent writing. I’ll fill in the stories and the struggles. See, I haven’t been as upset as I thought I’d be with a writing dry spell. I haven’t given up hope on writing, or even photography, as two things that might be larger parts of my future. I’ve always seen myself with tornados brewing inside. I’ve seen storms of writing and photography inspiration that could land me in galleries or bookstores, or both. Life takes its twists and turns, though. Photography has been a shield for me, because I’m never anxious with my camera up to my eye. Sometimes that makes me hang back instead of being in the vivid frame. In the sometimes painful, sometimes dizzying, but always eventful moments.
No One Take Pictures of Me
And no one eats dinner with me either. I’m not bitter; these are seeds that I have helped sow. But just because it looks the same as it ever was, it actually isn’t. I know more than I did then. I know more than I did yesterday; when we had our second snow day in a hectic week, and I juggled work with parenting with therapy. Writing has always been a shield for me as well, and it’s because it has a problem-solving nature. Before I started writing tonight, I had a storm inside my stomach. It was one that made me pause and think, “Did I not put enough hand sanitizer on after CVS? Or after the pediatrician I visited with Rider’s back to back strep?” “Was it something I ate?” As I write, though, the words have a soothing and settling effect not unlike tea, if I were the tea-drinking type. It’s the storms inside of me. I write to feel, and to process. When I don’t write, I still feel, and I have to find other ways to process it. Sometimes they’re more healthy. Sometimes they’re less healthy. Life isn’t always wrapped up with a nice bow and the end of a paragraph.
Nor a Pretty Picture
It does help, though. I don’t know why I’m back, other than to settle the storm, but I have a feeling it won’t be eight weeks until I’m back again. Sure, the blog is busy. You see that. That’s a big reason I’m not here. It’s not always the four kids or the five dogs or the restaurant or the mental health. Sometimes, often, it’s because I don’t leave myself enough space because this blog is actually a big money-maker. There are parts of it that are income-heavy, and there are these parts, like this post, that are here for the sheer joy, or necessity, of recording what was once sacred; what is sacred. And I’m sorry I left for so long. I’m sorry to you, and I’m sorry to myself. I’m going to need this somehow, as we move through the next weird and terrifying and joyous parts of life. Discovery and adventure and sorrow and love. Everything we have is right in front of us, ready to grab or ignore. And everything we have is ahead of us and behind us. This blog is chock full of stories and love and adventure; the kind I’d once only imagined might happen, far beyond my most far-reaching dreams. I honor those stories, and I honor those versions of me I’ve let go. And I honor the strong woman who’s here, with spark, and rising confidence and courage.
I started this blog over 15 years ago, with one baby and one elderly dog, for the simple purpose of sharing writing and photography. It snowballed along the way, it seems, and picked up some strange and unusual careers, three more kids, five more dogs, a cat, chickens, international (finally) travel, a lot of giant Christmas trees, and a whole lot of mental health. I fell asleep on the couch earlier tonight, which actually rarely happens these days, clinging to Rose’s soft fur. Things moved around me, like people and dogs, settling and resettling themselves on couches, at desks, in bed. Some of them said goodnight. Some of them didn’t. It felt like the past, but it also felt like the future. So I sat up and began to write, to settle the storm. So that I could be a moving thing like the others, settling and resettling myself on couches, on chairs; eventually, in a warm bed.
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