I was working on clearing the room of doom yesterday. Back to my personal bag a day challenge (as in get a bag of stuff that is in your house, out of your house every day) when I came across a box of old journals. As is often the case, they usually began early in the year, and end before March.
This one was well into April, when the following list appeared:
Things I’ve always wanted to be or do:
interior designer
naturalist
fabulous
stand up comic
teacher
radio show host
television personality
master gardener
a pig, chicken and cow farmer
a comedian
easy going
a wife
a mother
a printmaker
monastic
fit
a good runner
a professional soccer player
adventurous
a novelist
a dog owner
This was dated, April 2004 which is just about when, unbeknownst to me, Sam would have been conceived. I had not yet begun the adoption process (yes, it was very fast for me: six months from walking in the agency door, to pulling the bundle which was Sam into my arms). I sat down in that room of doom, and reread that list many times. So I suppose this could have become a blog about many things apparently. Pig farmer and print maker on tour as a stand up comic posts something fabulous before her radio show? Interior designer on television walking through her sun room on the way to her garden?
So I guess this blog still could be about many things. It feels important to post this list, because somehow motherhood, and writing about it became the list, instead of on the list. What does that mean?
In praise of keeping journals, and writing it down. A journal is very different from a blog. In praise of remembering that. In praise of rediscovering them, and remembering that it’s never too late to invite manure into your life, if that is what you always wanted to do.
What’s on your list? Or is it time you wrote one?
I need to write that list. What a great idea for January. Off the top, radio show host (public radio only ;), jazz singer/pianist, photojournalist for wars and such, mom of many…
Oh I love the musician. can totally see it. I think I need to rewrite mine now too…
I love the old photo of you. You can see you and you can see who you have become–and I absolutely love the list of things you wanted to be and do– so many you can check off your list as having accomplished already! So many interesting things still to do– or to say goodbye to– or to translate into something new– like is being a blogger kind of like being a stand up comedian? A television personality? A novelist? xo Laura
I love the way you put that. That feels so much less defeating, and so much more like a list of accomplishments! Thank you Mama!
Look at you =). I have yet to make a list, but oddly enough, I did start a new journal this year, and I’ve been spending a significant amount of time with it. I’ve been engaged with my own writing like I am that of an author whose book I am reading. Letting the words speak to me when I go back and re-read them, and talking back to that self which wrote those words. You’re right. A journal is very different from a blog. A friend’s gift to me has re-presented me with the opportunity to use both to the full advantage.
It was certainly interesting for me to read that post. Thanks for it. I like such topics and anything connected to this matter. I definitely want to read a bit more on that site soon.
Mary Trider
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