A World Happens in a Week

A world happens in a week.

At least in one of my weeks. In a week’s time, I might teach school; help with a garage sale; plan curriculum; help with cleaning jobs; wash the dishes; write lengthy emails; bake cookies; visit friends; attend church; dream about the future; take a sister out for supper; begin the sixth revision of Turtle Heart; dig myself out of the messy hole of my room; fold a dozen loads of laundry; pass a hundred tiny crises of doubt and faith, love and annoyance, contentment and urge.

At the end of the week, I can barely remember what happened at the beginning of it.

And then I sit down at my computer and try to pull some meaning from life, something simple that I can blog about.

I always feel as though weeks of time have passed since my last blog post, always wonder what on earth I’m going to write about this time, always back away from the pressure–its upper lip curled, teeth just showing–that demands me to write the perfect post. After all, this is my one blog of the week. It ought to be Important and Really Good.

Sometimes it takes hours just to focus enough to actually write something.

“Art happens,” someone told me recently, “when you can do it without thinking about it.”

I would like this ability. I would like to be able to sit down at my computer and be able to write easily, to give life to one thought, one event, one emotion, without  feeling fragmented and overwhelmed.

I want to capture movement, color, sound. Like a scientist with a petri dish, I am fascinated by possibility, driven by the insane belief that if I try hard enough and long enough, I will be able to replicate in miniature a piece of this great pulsing organism we call life.

But I can’t capture it all at once.

And never if I’m tight and pressured.

So I want to try something a bit different on my blog. I will post more often–several times a week, instead of just once–but I will spend less time in writing the posts. They will be shorter posts, more intimate, more fun.

Instead of combing a foggy brain once a week for the components of a perfect post, I’ll sit down at the computer every couple of mornings and take ten minutes or so to tap out a fascinating glimpse of my life here in Sheldon, Wisconsin. Ha! In your dreams, honey.

Still. I’ll try it and see how it works.

No rules, no promises. I’ll just try it.

See you soon!