Why I Blog

To Write, and To Be Read

Do I have a unique voice to offer the blogosphere? I'm not yet sure. But I have a desire to put into words the way I see the world, and believe that in doing so, life is a little sharper, a little more clear.

Of coarse, there is also the fear of my brain atrophying with all the tedium that is mothering-small-children. I mean, ask me how much a 3 oz jar of baby food costs at any local grocer, and I can give you a detailed analysis, but the USEFUL part of my brain, the part I'm going to need once these kids of mine launch their parachutes into life and blow away? Well, that part needs some exercise. Maybe along the way I'll write something that is coherent enough to attract a reader or two? Icing.

To Remember

I take snapshots in my mind of my children: of their perfect, beautiful, dirty, skinned kneed, runny nosed, bright eyed, blondish-brown curled, fighting, teething, drooling, laughing selves. It's hard, living in this state of feeling like I have to remember. To know that I'm already forgetting. I take video, I take pictures, I write in their baby books, but it's still not enough. I know on a cellular level that this time, right now, is the time we will always look back on. "When our kids were little" we'll say. We'll say "When Kate and Joan were babies". "When Marin was learning to crawl" we'll muse, but then we'll get her confused with the other two. We'll try to remember, but we won't remember enough.

And forget about remember me. Remembering how I was, who I was. Forget about remembering how far I've come, how much I've changed, how much these children have taught me. How much I have taught myself. Forget about remembering how much David and I clung together, holding hands and jumping into this life as parents. Forget about how we always forget the we are the parents. How we love this time in our lives, we really do, but how we dream of the future, the just-the-two-of-us time. The time in our lives when we'll be trying to remember today. So I write. To remember.

To Define

There is something special about putting into words ones experiences. It makes them more real, more honest-to-goodness-it-happened-to-me. It sharpens one's existence, to live and then to take life and define it in sentences and paragraphs. It makes one notice. It helps one understand. It validates. It clarifies. And getting it just right? When the words on the page match the essence of the experience and the experience is defined? It makes me feel alive.