her able hands

First of all, thank you so much for your thoughtful comments on my last post. Much food for thought, particularly in Joe’s comment. It’s interesting that Joe picked up on the Tyler aspect of the post because that’s the part that I most wanted to write more about, but I stopped doing the mommy blog thing for a reason. I felt like I crossed the line saying anything at all. But now I want to follow up on a few of those thoughts. But that’s for another day after I let it percolate a little bit more. Today I’m thinking more about my blog as a whole.

For a couple of months now, I’ve been annoyed by the fact that most of what I write about, I’ve written about before, and how I’m so very bored with my bloggy self. Then yesterday I read Becca’s post about blogging in time and the challenges for a long-term blogger to make the cyclical nature of things work well.

Time goes forward–2008, 2009, 2010–but it also cycles–spring, summer, winter, fall, spring, 4/16/08, 4/16/09, 4/16/10. That’s the beauty of it. Blogs are essentially temporal: the two things that make a blog a blog are the computer and time as the organizing structure of the post. The topical blogger and the narrative blogger can, I think, take better advantage of this nexus of the progressive and the cyclical. [emphasis mine]

That last line has popped into my head a thousand times as I wonder just how I can take better advantage of that in my own narrative efforts. Each season rolls around again and the idea is to record the progress, both internal and external. What’s happening in the gardens, in the kitchen, with the family, inside of me. What new ideas we’re playing around with in our heads and in our hearts. But I so often now feel as if I’ve already said it all, or that there’s no new way to say it to make it a slightly different story.

I don’t want to stop blogging, but I do think I’ll be posting less story over the next few weeks and working on some photography instead. Things are shifting here and I don’t feel the need to write about any of it. Quite the opposite. I feel the need to hold it inside and keep my attention on the vision of this new life unfolding. To stay in action as much as possible during the transition because I have so very many balls in the air, or pots on the stove, or seeds in the soil. Actually, I’m managing all of these things while working full-time and it’s a little crazy-making. It’s also short-term, I can really feel that. I think looking at it all through the lens may help clarify my vision some, and give me a chance to learn a bit more about this camera I’ve been toting around for three years and still only using the automatic settings.

So let’s end out this gorgeous week (goodness this weather has been spectacular!) with a little list love, and then I have to go make lunches and get us all up and out the door so I can go hang out in the cubicle farm for another eight hours. (I take a break every half hour to close my eyes, breathe deep into my body and see this other life in action—this life of working with food and gardens and people.)

• The squirrels did not, in fact, dig up all of my Fava Beans and Peas. They’re almost all up about an inch now, and I have a newfound hope for the harvest this season.

• My peppers and eggplant are finally beginning to poke through the starter mix after 22 days. I really need to seal off the light stand with some plastic to create more of a heated room in there.

• Three bags of plant splittings that Cheril gave me in the late fall somehow survived the winter, even though they spent it sitting out in plastic grocery bags. They now have new homes in the perennial bed. I have no idea what they are.

• Turnips, radish, arugula, spinach and chard are all up.

• I forgot to take the lids off of my winter sowing containers on Tuesday and fried most of the seedlings. Hand smack to forehead. So much for my masses of Lupine and Delphinium. Boo.

• I have a couple of people who want to buy vegetables from me this year. I’ll make no guarantees on quantity, but will be good practice to get the succession planting schedule in rhythm.

• My brother is considering coming to Kent State to do his graduate studies in ceramics. I know! I might actually have family I understand in town with me in a year. Holy mackerel, Andy. I need to not get too excited about that one because he also might be going to Osaka Japan to apprentice with a master potter. His future is wide open, as Mr. Petty would say.

• Last night my neighbor asked me if I’m pregnant. That’s two people in two months. I really am going to need to learn to chew and spit when testing cupcake recipes. And make time to get vigorous exercise in every day again. And do about five thousand crunches a day, to boot.

• And tell Chris to not bring home any more Corona. No matter how warm it gets out, I need to step away from the icy cold beer.

Happy Friday peeps…here comes another weekend. What’s on your plate?

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