Thursday, Aug 14, 2008 | Kids, Local Food, Soccer |
Okay, this is way too easy to do. I sense an impending addiction. It’s like being able to blurt out anything to anyone (or, as the case may be, no one) at virtually any time, with (almost) impunity.
To set the current scene: baby is lying on a blanket on the floor, “talking” (shouting, more like it; he’s got a big voice), surrounded by bits of Playmobil, while the other kids play something I can’t quite make out. I love their imaginary games, though truth be told, they’re too obscure to follow, and seem to rely on repetition: “I’m putting this bed in here, because they have to sleep in here.” “But then there is no door.” “This is a door.” “I have to pack up all your jewels.” “Okay.” Enhanced by incredible engine noises from A, age 7, and always but always the loudest child anywhere. Not because he’s shouting but because of his sound effects, which he’s been performing since infancy. Airplanes roars, explosions of all kinds, motors, engines, robots. He seemed to come by his repetoire instinctively, before he could have known what noise a car would make.
I wasn’t going to write about the kids. Much.
Anyway, that’s the scene, and I’m on the computer in the kitchen (bad placement for someone prone to check more often than she should), and there are dirty dishes on the counter, pots unwashed, leftover supper food just put away (pasta, with almost entirely local homemade sauce and salad; cherry tomatoes from our driveway garden!), and Kevin’s off to play his weekly soccer match. Let’s hope he comes home uninjured. (Black eye a couple of a weeks ago. Ouch). The Olympics are on in the background, too. And I’m about to floss the kids’ teeth, one by one, with them lying on the couch with their heads in my lap. All of the ones who have teeth.
Thursday, Aug 14, 2008 | Kids |
I am being driven crazy by my Mac. Computers are giant time-suckers. I should be writing with a pen and paper … if only I could read my own writing.
But really it’s just been a frustrating writing morning. Nursing interruptions, and poor focus. I’m working on a poetry collection that I’ve been working on for FIVE YEARS. Good grief. It’s mainly about young motherhood and maybe someday I’ll be done. Or have produced enough poems that I like at the same time to attempt to publish them. By which time I’ll no longer be a young mother. Really, I’m not a poet, I’m too drawn to narrative to write really fine poems, which need to be seeded with the mysterious, the spiritual, the hidden and only partially revealed, not plot.
Ear plugs in. I rewrote a few old poems, with some success. Will post one here, if my internet connection doesn’t fail me.
Or not. Just tried and it looked … well, disappointing. Haven’t figured out how to move pictures around so they look pretty and don’t interfere with text. As a former newspaper copy editor, I don’t want to publish something that looks subpar. Oh well.
I have three hours a week right now to write. I’m down to my last half hour of the week. I’ve rewritten a couple of poems and started this blog. I think I’ll be heading downstairs feeling distinctly disappointed, restless and aimless. Kevin’s had a hard morning with the kids. There has been a lot of conflict. Right now the kids are in the room next door “cleaning” up the girls’ room and Kevin is in and out of my working space with the baby in a sling, my working space being the changeroom/toyroom/soon-to-be-baby’s-bedroom/my computer on tiny computer table; and now Kevin is speaking with great frustration to the kids: “This is worse than before!” Time-outs and threats and warnings. We have four children ages seven down to four months, two boys as bookends, two girls in between. It feels, today, like I’ve been unable to shut out the mundanity and get to work.
Okay, resolve for next week’s writing day to go better. Next week I will start a new story instead. I’m afraid of the new story, that’s today’s real problem. I’ve written two in a collection that was previously a novel, and it’s material almost too close to my heart, and too painful, and I am terrified of failure. That makes working on it with any level of success very difficult. Requires more bravery than apparently I’ve got today.
Ear plugs out. Sigh.
