Formulaic?
May 28th, 2008
I wonder if falling into formulas of writing doesn’t turn into a kind of block? I start feeling like a parody of myself. Something cute the kids said or did, some piece on NPR, and its application to my life, earnest self-examination, pat little summarization. And when I write about something like the Suzuki Lessons piece, I wonder if I sound as if I think I have all the answers? When my best friend leaves a comment about mother guilt I wonder if I haven’t given a lopsided version of things, that I need to rush back in and qualify how I worry about pushing my kids for the wrong reasons, how the time I spend practicing with them is time not spent cooking nutritious meals and how much self-doubt I go through still regularly? That sometimes I think a little bit less time with me might be good for the lot of them?
Should I, for the sake of honesty, be talking instead about how I get PMS and yell and tell the kids that since I have to spend all of my time picking up after them maybe tonight I won’t have time to read to them? Should I be talking about my guilt that I felt like I had nothing left to give getting involved with a co-op preschool for Rainer, even though I loved the co-oping I did with each of his brothers? Yesterday a friend told me about the preschool her daughter was at with one opening for a four year old, and so I went today and met the teacher and fell in love because she was just right with the way she talked to him, at his level, answering his question “What’s this?” with “What do you think it is?” really engaging him, and I realized he needed that kind of interaction with an adult and I haven’t been giving it to him and the school is an easy bike ride from my house, and it just felt so RIGHT, and then I found out tonight that that space is not available and am a little bit heartbroken? And guilty because I should have planned ahead for the whole preschool thing for him?
I know that in pondering whether blogging about your kids is exploitation I started in with the question of what I find comfortable writing about for the whole world to read, but aside from the moral/ethical questions of privacy and safety, there’s a more aesthetic one. Can I put myself out for commiseration without sounding like I am whining? Can I be proud of an accomplishment without sounding insufferable? If I share the self-doubts am I somehow reinforcing some model of female relating by self-doubt? Can I adore my children without making them overly precious? If my worldview is inexplicably optimistic (really, don’t ask, I haven’t a clue why it should be) and I tend to get more excited about the things that work than depressed about things that seem hopeless, does it make me impossible to relate to? In the end, I guess, these questions are paralytic, there is no sentence I can make up that some little voice in my head cannot suggest a horrible misreading of, so I just have to go ahead and write what I need to write, and trust the reader.
May 30th, 2008 at 4:15 am
“Consider pleasure and pain as the same thing,
And success and loss, victory and defeat as well,
Then give yourself to the struggle
And you won’t bring disaster on yourself.” - Bhagavad-Gita
You remind me of the importance of being vulnerable. Thanks Mara! Being vulnerable allows me to be open to another, to allow another person or group to enjoy their own desire and strength–and, ultimately, it is the foundation for love. Although the feeling of being vulnerable is uncomfortable, understood as a basic spiritual condition, it can deepen what strengths we have.
June 10th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I’ve gone back and read this post so many times now I can’t even keep count. You have voiced so many of my own thoughts/fears about blogging! It’s so much easier when it’s you having the self-doubt, though, to say unequivocally, YES! You can do all those things, and please keep on trusting us, your readers, and to the process because I need to keep hearing what you have to say.