Cheers to the Writers

There are writers out there. 

Real writers who will never, in all liklihood, write a book or find a publisher or top a best-sellers list, but they're out there nonetheless, writing, experimenting, thinking, and expressing.  And when I'm lucky enough to run across them, I feel something in my brain and heart expand, connecting me to a thought I wish I had thought on my own, or a feeling that I never knew how to express, like this one.

Or sometimes I just laugh until tears run down my cheeks, like this one.

I'm so thankful to those who write.  God bless 'em.

Sorry, It's Personal

Mr. Steinbeck

John Steinbeck once said something about writing that I wish I remembered word for word.  I don't.  I wrote it down--or actually, I told Logan to write it down because I was driving across 4 states at the time.  She did, painstakingly I might add, but that 3 ring notebook has long since disappeared probably somewhere 2 states away. The memory of it, though, has not.  He said something about how he didn't write to tell other people what to think but, rather, that he wrote to understand what he thought himself.

When I heard that it was like lightening.

And so, these last few posts, haven't been for anyone but me, really.  I'm just busy speaking out loud so that I know what I'm thinking.  Because in putting words together, lining them up and ordering them, they suddenly clarify and make some sense of what feels nonsensical sometimes. 

That's all.

Instead

I think I promised I'd get back to regular posting.  And then this last week went and made me a liar.  Darn week.

I actually started writing something on Monday.  Something that I don't know how to write.  Something still unsettling to me.  Something both sacred and sad.  Something about which I'm unsure if all mothers will relate to or something that will just make me look like a failure, which is frankly how I felt--make that, still feel.  Something that I will finish writing once I can wrap my mind around it and find the end.

Sometimes when I can't make sense of something, I have to stop looking at it for a while.  Instead I need to gain control over something, like organizing the playroom, which I did.  Something that requires presence of mind and body.  Something that makes sense out of chaos.  And then I need to do something physical, like take an adult ballet class, which I did.  Something demanding that beats out that pent up emotion.  And then I need to do something comforting, and since I can't crawl up onto my mom's lap anymore, I call her, which I did.  And like always, she drenched me in love until I was dripping with it.  And finally I need advice, so I go to lunch with dear friends, which I did.  And I lay out my burden and pick their brains.

And then I think.

And hopefully
I will write.

Phoning Home

"Do you think the reference to my woo-hoo was a little over the top the other day?" I couldn't help but notice that one of my friendly readers dropped me like a hot potato the same day I referenced my...well, you know what. Coincidence? Probably not is my guess. I don't want to notice those things. I really don't. Because then I get a little weird. A bit obsessed perhaps. I start thinking in big swirls and loops, and my head gets dizzy.

"What?!" my mother responded laughingly.

Maybe I should have said hello first. "The other day in a blog post I mentioned my woo-hoo? Do you think that was inappropriate in the context?"

More laughter. "I didn't even think about it."

Phwew. Good. In my world there are only four opinions about me that matter. God's. Mine. My parents'. And now that I'm married--Mr. Wicke's. That last one is a little tricky, though, because we are very different creatures.

I had first asked Mr. Wicke his opinion. "Well, I wouldn't have done it." But that's the problem. Of course he wouldn't have. He's a solid 7 kind of guy, whereas I live my life in a random patterns of 5's and 10's. He's even keel, and I'm the slight ripples Heaven sent to liven up his trip a little.

"So...you're saying you think I was wrong?"

"No. I'm just saying that it's not something I would have done."

"What. You think I told people something they didn't already know? Like they thought the baby slipped out of my belly button or something?"

He smiled, "You're so funny."

"So, is there some judgement there?"

"No."

"Oh, I think there is."

"No, there isn't."

"You are no help at all! I'm going to ask my mother."

My mother is my moral thermometer in a lot of ways: A 77 year old woman who can not bear the words fart or butt (so sorry, Mom) and taught me everything I know about being decent has a lot of moral pull in my book. "You can't worry," she continued, "about what anyone else thinks. People who do that never write anything, or never write anything good."

And that's what I'm really trying to do. I want to write like no one is reading. Which is when I started thinking, what I am I writing this blog for anyway? If I really want to write like no one is reading, why not do it in a journal? What the heck is my purpose here? This isn't some exercise in narcissism every day, is it? Or IS it? Ugh. I'd hate to think that...Big swirls and loops in my brain. BIG. I'm still dizzy days later.

And then she said, and I love her for it, "Besides," you're really only writing for me, anyway." She doesn't have a problem with my occasional colorful descriptions. Instead, I make her laugh. And she, in turn, calms my dizzy brain. Maybe someday we'll be even, but I doubt it.