Mother, wife, career woman... my life has a lot of structure in it. Most days follow a similar schedule, and each week is like the one before. I have more routine, more repetitiveness than ever before. I also feel more grounded than ever before - grounded in the sense of a current connected to the earth, but also in the sense of a plane that's stuck on the runway. I feel more secure than ever - secure as in safe, and also as in secured, tied down.
I'm craving adventure. Not in a destructive, throw-out-the-baby-with-the-bathwater kind of way. I don't need to escape from this (pretty wonderful) life, I just need to make some more room in it.
This connects to another note on method. My paper is getting written one stolen half hour at a time. I find little spaces of time during nap, or after G's bedtime. Or my husband hangs out with the little monkey while I write in a cafe or at the library. There's enough time to read a few pages and synthesize them, or to write a few paragraphs from memory and experience - a long conversation taking place in short pieces. It feels good to stay with this topic, to mull it, over a long time. I've never written a paper on a subject that I've been actively engaging with over the span of a few years. It feels bad to be unable to really sink in, to stay in the depths with it for any significant continuous length of time.
The paper appears in little sections, like a puzzle. They jostle each other, finding new positions. I add a sentence here, a paragraph or quotation there, an entire new section some days. It's intriguing - I like to watch it expand - but I also find the process a little dry. I can only skim the surface in half an hour, can't I? I often feel hurried, unsure when G will wake. How can I let go when I'm not sure when I'll be yanked back?
This post was to be on finding the juice - that's where I want to be. I think it's ended up being more about the dry spell. It's my starting place.
I'm craving adventure. Not in a destructive, throw-out-the-baby-with-the-bathwater kind of way. I don't need to escape from this (pretty wonderful) life, I just need to make some more room in it.
This connects to another note on method. My paper is getting written one stolen half hour at a time. I find little spaces of time during nap, or after G's bedtime. Or my husband hangs out with the little monkey while I write in a cafe or at the library. There's enough time to read a few pages and synthesize them, or to write a few paragraphs from memory and experience - a long conversation taking place in short pieces. It feels good to stay with this topic, to mull it, over a long time. I've never written a paper on a subject that I've been actively engaging with over the span of a few years. It feels bad to be unable to really sink in, to stay in the depths with it for any significant continuous length of time.
The paper appears in little sections, like a puzzle. They jostle each other, finding new positions. I add a sentence here, a paragraph or quotation there, an entire new section some days. It's intriguing - I like to watch it expand - but I also find the process a little dry. I can only skim the surface in half an hour, can't I? I often feel hurried, unsure when G will wake. How can I let go when I'm not sure when I'll be yanked back?
This post was to be on finding the juice - that's where I want to be. I think it's ended up being more about the dry spell. It's my starting place.