Word To The Ys

July has been exciting, yes…but it’s been really hard.  It’s like a ride with all these extremes, and to top it off the busyness has kept me from writing much.  But even as my kids argue downstairs and dinner sizzles on the stove, I just have to write lest I be carried away by unhappiness.

I guess I hadn’t realized how important this regular exercise of writing had become to me.  I sound like a string of cliches, but it is soul-work, even when the subject matter is silly or trivial, and I’m noticing how down I’ve been the longer I’ve been unable to practice regularly.  In a previous life, one where I was 20 or so and living in a 150 square-foot room with a luxuriously large bank of windows and old linoleum flooring; when I had no wrinkles or grey hairs or direct responsibilities for other human beings, I sang every single day.  The “big” choir (actually only 40 or so voices) met 3 days a week; the small ensemble met…I forget, maybe 2 days a week?; the Phantom Elevators met a couple late nights each week to mostly giggle and sometimes sing.  It was as much a part of me as reading or showering or eating.  I remember when I left college this was one of the most difficult transitions for me…though I still sang with a (larger) chorus it met just once a week.  I didn’t have the gratifying late-afternoon breaks in my day in which I laid my soul bare in the beautiful world of choral music.  Singing in the car, while fun in its own right, was not the same.  I missed the regular communal practice of making music with a group.  During the summer breaks I would fall into a downright silly melancholia, not realizing what was causing my grumpiness until a lightbulb would go off sometime in August: I need to sing.

Over the years my participation in choral music has dwindled to nearly none.  I do miss it, and hope to return one day when my husband has that damn parchment proclaiming him educated and my children all know how to wipe themselves.  But in the meantime, this blog has become what choir used to be for me: a lifeline.  A connection between myself and others through a creative endeavor.

People have kindly been asking me how the memoir writing has been coming along.  The answer is: not at all.  It’s a different sort of writing, one that I’ve found requires more concentration and solitude, which is a nonexistent entity in my current life.  But come September, I will have nearly every afternoon to myself…well, 2.5 hours of it, anyway…and that is the work I am excited to do in that time.  The memoir writing (or the attempt at novel writing, previously) is a bit like the car-singing, though…still enjoyable and good for my spirit, but it lacks the communal aspect I’ve grown to love.  When I write here, I publish almost immediately, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me that some of you actually care enough about me, my meandering mind, the life of my family, and/or this nutso movie project to actually come here on a regular basis and check in.  For a stay-at-home mom and work-from-home writer/editor/desktop publisher-type, there aren’t a whole lot of forays into the world beyond school drop-offs or grocery runs.  It can be very isolating.  But when I come here and see that someone I love has stopped by and responded to what I’ve written, I can feel myself a member of something bigger.  I can suddenly hear that my vocal line is really  just part of a polyphonic masterpiece of joy, tribulation, and everything in-between.

Thank you for caring.  Thank you for writing.  Thank you for all your kindness toward me as a writer and a mother and a voice out here.  Though I don’t comment back as often as I should, I am grateful for your time.  And I am loving the music we all make together.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 at 6:18 pm and is filed under Mostly Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.