Shana--I think your post beautifully sums up what I, too, hope to gain from this blog.
Too often I'm saddened by what I view as my "directionless" life. I'm not sure what I want to devote my life to at this point. I am depressed by the idea of the average American's cycle of daily life: wake up, go to work, work at (un-fulfilling?) job in order to make money so that you can come home and relax for a few hours before heading to bed to start the cycle over again.
What do I want from my life? I realize there are baby steps involved in getting to the place where I feel completely fulfilled. I am very blessed as my current job is actually fulfilling--I enjoy spending the days with a little 14-month-old and watching her experience the world for the first time, enjoying, marveling, and giggling at things that grownups take no notice of. She'll stop and run her fingers through the dirt, toddle through the grass, and decide that seating is not limited to benches and whatnot, rather the sidewalk, dirt, any floor will do just as well or even better. She is now fearlessly gaining language, starting to turn her babbling into actual words. I take inspiration from her, and I wish to fearlessly conquer the written word.
I've told you how daunting it is for me to start to write. I have been silent because of my fears. I feel like words are unable to fully express my feelings. Part of what gave me writers block through my Senior Thesis was the fact that I felt like Katharine Brush was so vast, detailed, full of life and humor, too expansive for me to confine to 30 pages and remain true to her legacy. In the end, it gave me such a good feeling to have a purpose, a goal and something to look forward to, even if I felt inadequate. I hope that as part of this blog-writing project I will also be able to continue on my research and analysis of her works, as something I can devote part of my life to and gain fulfillment from.
To me, this blog is an opportunity to get some ideas down and and not think too hard about expressing everything I imagined. It's exciting for me that we will all start out on this journey together. Just writing this little post has been a relief, a step toward freedom. Amen to silence being broken!
I think children teach a wonderful lesson to us dullard adults. They're so full of energy and whimsy, so easily excited and engrossed. Their state of being, of eagerness and joy, is certainly what life's goal should be. The only thing keeping us from being kids again is perspective, I think.
ReplyDeleteSee, kids can just be amazed by the way grass feels, or how rain sounds on the window. But adults need a bigger picture. When the grass and the rain can be perceived to work in tandem with myriads of other things and factors, coalescing in this breath-taking world, suddenly that joy returns. When a job, even a lame one, can be perceived as a way to bring sustenance and rapture to a beautiful home and family, and making ripples of optimism and smiles that will spread to those around us and to generations to come, suddenly the seven dwarves on their way to the mine, whistling and singing, doesn't seem so disney!
I wish for you mounds of success in this undertaking, and may your whispering ideas be cultivated and developed into jubilant melodies through this blog, and through any other avenues you choose!