The Skinny on Me (or: Me, Me, Me! Please, Let's Talk More AboutMe!)

Because I didn't do enough shameless blathering about myself  in the previous post, here's more.  Apparently this blogging thing really speaks to the selfish narcissist in me.

I explained that I've been wanting to blog for some time, that I'm inspired by the world around me and always have been, and that I'd like to share some of my thoughts on those things with y'all (or, apparently, 'yins', if you're from Pittsburgh). 

But, what inspired this grandiose dream of yours, you ask?  Because I know you're all asking. 

Well, over the last 3 and a half years, I've experienced some wonderful and rather drastic changes in my life, and have had lots of cool experiences. I took a leave of absence from a job I was never sure was for me, and I went to graduate school and trained in an entirely new discipline.  I bought a new car. I travelled to Cape Breton Island, Maine, Montreal, London (Canada), St. Lucia, San Francisco, New York, Vancouver, Israel, Providence, and Portugal.  I bought a house.  Most hugely, I gave birth to two beautiful children. 

This time of immense change has been the source of much inspiration, rumination, joy and lonliness, sometimes all at once.  But it has been an amazing and powerful time.

I have probably learned more about myself than I ever knew was possible.  And sometimes, I'm in my head so much, that I'm bored with myself.  So I guess this space is also a forum to put some of that cognitive diarrhea into the ether. It's just wonderful that I have a god given right to use the word diarrhea whenever I want, isn't it?

Let the saccharine navel gazing recommence.

Being in my head for almost 4 years has taught me the following:

1) I find extreme beauty in the every day.  A bare branch.  A fallen leaf.  A sparkly sidewalk.
2) I used to think I wasn't passionate about anything, but I was wrong. I now recognize that creating things has always been a passion, and has always brought  me fulfillment.
3) My family, and especially my children have taught me how deeply I could  love.
4) We create our own happiness.  Much of that results from gratitude for all that we have
4) I am one extremely lucky chick.  One of the luckiest, what with all the blessings that have been bestowed on me. I am so grateful.

The result of so much transition, isolation and lots of  time has been that I've had opportunities for great experimentation. I've (sort of) learned to sew, to knit, to cook, to take (and edit) better photographs, to salsa dance, and to write a blog. And that's not even including all the mad skillz I picked up in grad school. 

The most important skills in my mind though, as those that relate to being a mom.  And of course, it is by far the steepest learning curve. There are too many to enumerate here, but a few highlights: how to calm a crying baby, how to breastfeed, how to make a birthday ice cream cake, how to change a diaper full of a poo explosion calmly on my lap - - while sitting on a plane preparing for take off, how to travel abroad with babies, how to drive across town with two small children and keep them calm, how to drive across town with two screaming children and not lose my mind, and how to sort of function on less than 6 hours of interrupted sleep a night.  So, besides navel gazing, this blog will also be about my pursuits learning new things, and experimenting with various skills.

Basically, it's just a big 'ole hodgepodge.  And because I'm a closeted ADD case (truly, I think I'm undiagnosed), it's all over the place.  Enjoy.

First Musings

Welcome to my blog.  It's been a long time coming.  For well over a year I've considered writing, but over the last couple months it become clear that I would do it soon.  When I began composing posts in my head, I knew it was time.  There were a good 10 posts that would have been good for a laugh or two...But the old gray matter just couldn't recall them. 

This space will be a platform for my general thoughts about life; a space in which I will  "muse" about the things that inspire me.  Because I have been entranced with this beautiful, exotic, breathtaking world of ours for as long as I can remember, I feel that, in a sense it has been my muse.  So this will be part travel blog, a space in which I share photos and thoughts about amazing places I've visited.

But it will be more than a travel blog, because the more I live in the world, the more I feel awestruck and inspired by what surrounds me. The natural world, with it's inherent perfection. But also that which we create: art, architecture, design, good food. And people--and the absolute joy (and, at times, utter despair) they bring to our emotional lives.

As a young traveller before the digital age, I took rolls and rolls of film, to try to capture the essence of the places I visited.  The sights, sounds, smells, feel of a place. My friends, of course, made lots of fun of me, and I deserved it.  My husband (M from here on in) often told me to put down the camera, and just be. But I often felt as though I couldn't help myself.  I needed to document a beautiful moment, because I knew how fleeting it was, and I wanted to be able to relive it somehow, again, later. At times, I even missed out on moments because I was too busy chasing them with my camera. 

As I get older, I realize that it's better to live a moment that to observe it for the purpose of documentation.   And I have realized that there is perfection in being fully present in the life we're living, right now. 

But that old itch to capture some of life's beautiful essence so that I can ingest it and keep it a part of me has never left me. Just ask my hard drive, with its thousands of photos.

Hence, this blog. In it, I will highlight those things that I cannot help myself from trying to capture, ingest, digest, even in small measure.

It will mainly be a place for me to blather on about a bunch of stuff, and this novel of a post is just a long winded attempt to find a common thread.

Yeah, it's a lot.  But that's what's awesome about this: it's my blog, and I'll write if I want to. I hope you'll read....