Wait, what am I supposed to be doing?

Our Kaleb has a short, short-term memory. He can narrate stories from three years ago with remarkable detail and precision, but if we ask him to do a simple chore, he's often forgotten the task at hand by the time he reaches the place where he's supposed to do it.

"Mom!" he yelled from the top of the stairs not too long ago. "What I supposed to do?"

"Your bed, Kaleb! You went up to make your bed."

"Oh. Yeah." Back on course. :)

Lately, we're all trying to get back on course at our house. We're well into our second week of school, a change that means many things--earlier mornings, a more rigorous schedule, and a lot more breathing room for this mama. I had high hopes of jumping right back into my writing routine once the kids returned to their studies. Who was I kidding? Transitions are hard for me, too. I spent the hours the kids were at school wandering aimlessly through our house, trying to decide which project left undone the last few months I should first tackle. Should I clean the fridge? Wipe down the fingerprinted walls? Re-organize the cabinets? Paint over the crayon drawings on the playroom wall? Haul donations to Habitat for Humanity? Maybe I should read. Take a nap. Go for a jog. Try some deep breathing.

First day of school!

Then there was the problem of work. I usually split my time between teaching and writing, and I found myself unexpectedly underemployed this fall. There weren't enough students to run the Creative Writing class I typically teach in the fall at our local high school, so we decided to postpone and offer it again in the spring. At first I was bummed out; then I thought, "What a gift! I can write more!" I've been trying to build up regular freelancing since last spring, but after some quick and early success, I discovered how slow the process of becoming a freelance writer or any kind of writer can be. 

At the end of summer, I told myself I would create a rigorous writing schedule. And then I didn't. I told myself I would not stress anymore about rejections, or worse, total silence. And then I did. I told myself I would just sit down and write. And then I couldn't remember what I wanted to write about.

So. Here we are. It's week two and now remind me, What am I supposed to be doing?

I decided to be gracious with myself. After all, a slow start is better than no start. I set small goals and made short lists. I'm finally starting to feel like I have my wits about me. The house is no longer uncomfortably quiet, but peaceful. The floors are no longer coated in a strange ick, but relatively clean. The laundry is no longer pouring off the oversized armchair in our sun room, but tucked away in drawers. And the leak in the bank account that is school shopping at our house has been stopped up again.

Then I looked for some people. If there's one thing about the lonely vocation of writing I've been learning, it's this: Writers need community, and they have to be intentional about finding it. Community in the world of writing doesn't always look like what we think it should. Because ultimately, a lot of community building is still happening in solitude with the quiet hum of my computer and the incessant ticking of the clock behind my head. Email, social media, phone calls, texting, and reading other writers' books are the primary ways writers build community together. Face to face is rare. Lovely, but rare. I had questions about building a platform and wrote to acquaintances who have been publishing longer than I have. I had questions about a book proposal I just completed and asked a couple of writer/editor friends to read over it. I sent out a couple more queries for articles and hung out by my inbox a little too long hoping a response would come lightning-fast, even though it usually takes weeks or never comes at all. I looked for a conference I can attend this year.

So things are happening in fits and starts. I can look back over the hours I spent this week and see that I took some steps forward. Now comes the uncertain, gray area: Waiting--the space of being neither here nor there. It's a space I'm still learning to get used to in general during these middle years of life, but it's also a space I've come to enjoy. It's soft around the edges and a little tired, like me. But if I learn to rest in the gray areas, it's also life-giving and hopeful and sweet. More of a long, contemplative stroll than a sprint. It's a lesson in releasing control and being present to the moment, while I wait for my cue to take the next step toward future goals, or while I try to discern what those goals should even be.

In the meantime, I'm watching my kids from a little more distance than I'm used to, seeing how their little lives unfold and stepping in when they need me. This, too, is a new kind of waiting. I love who they are becoming, and while their needs can still be exhausting at times, mostly I find myself just on-call. "Mom!" someone is often yelling from a corner of the house. They need clothes washed or they're hungry or math homework is hanging them up or there's a dispute they can't resolve.

One little sweet and hopeful question I miss sometimes--"Play with me?" I remember the tedious hours playing house and blocks and riding bikes up and down the driveway, but I also miss the curiosity and wonder those hours held as my littles explored their tiny world for the first time. I wonder what new windows of the world we can open together now? What questions can we ask together?

For the next few months on the blog, I'll write about answering some of those tough questions and navigating increasingly complex experiences with our kids as they wake to a world that extends far beyond our front yard. What are the questions our kids still need answered in the middle of their growing up? And what questions do they need us to raise for them? And when we get to the hard stuff like confronting our own privilege or issues like racism, poverty and gun violence, how much do we share? These are things Mark and I gladly grapple with as parents. We want our kids to know the world beyond our doorstep so that they can respond to its beauty with joy and its brokenness with compassion. But sometimes we wonder, what's appropriate at 8, 10 and 12? There are no hard, fast rules to help us answer these questions as parents. Only experiences. Only stories.

That's the common thread, then. Story. It's how we come to appreciate what we don't know or have just forgotten, learn from those who do remember or have already been there, and build communities of shared experience so we can step forward together. In the world of writing, teaching or parenting, there's no requirement to do things the same way or all hold the same opinions. In fact, this is true in every area of life. The only thing you have to do is show up. Listen. And maybe throw your oar in once in a while to help steer the ship.

Imagine if those were the rules we followed for all of life:
1. Show up
2. Listen to good stories
3. Work together

We all need help remembering what it is we're supposed to be doing from time to time. Humble enough to ask, quiet enough to listen, energized enough to act. That's what I'm hoping for in this new season. What are you hoping for?