Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Mindless Blogging, Vacation Edition

By vacation, of course, I mean school break, and by school, I mean the one my child attends.  I enjoy my younger son quite a lot, actually.  He's smart, and intuitive, and an incredibly deep thinker, traits that make him, to me, extremely entertaining.  When he's home all the time, though, linear thought becomes difficult.  He's six, after all, and the concept of other people's separate consciousnesses is a nebulous abstraction at this point, even for such an advanced philosopher as himself.  For example, in the course of writing this paragraph, I've been asked to look at his Minecraft horse, play Minecraft with him, witness said horse's fashion show, reminded again that he's ready to hold the fashion show, and informed that his horse is misbehaving.

When one has reams of schoolwork to accomplish, chores to perform, and all of it should have been done yesterday, these interactions are a special kind of spiritual torture.  When one has nothing planned and the vague feeling that one should post a blog entry once in a while, it's even worse.  After all, why?  Why shouldn't I can this half-assed effort at blogging regularity and go ride horses around in (shudder) Creative Mode? (They're trapped in a cage of arrows.  See?  It looks like somebody has been shot by a bunch of arrows ...)

I'm sure this angst is worsened by my semester off, which is about to end, during which I have accomplished ... what?  My Great American Novel remains unwritten.  The new house still doesn't look like it's inhabited by Martha Stewart.  It might even look like it's inhabited by a crew of hillbillies with a penchant for decorating with cardboard boxes.  (Are you ready yet? ... Look!)  My art remains exactly as I left it in August.  My crafting skills have been at the service of a horde of small children for months, with nary a concrete project of my own to show for it.

Should I tie this up in a neat bow?  Note that, although greatness in the arts has not yet been achieved, other greatnesses are showing potential?  That as a result of willing and enthusiastic work at my son's school, I have a community, potentially wonderful and deep friendships, a house, for Pete's sake?  I don't know.  Ennui and uncertainty are often voices worth listening to, provided we listen deeply and discerningly enough.  In the meantime, my child has, again, delighted me.  Mom, look, I made an exploding blueberry!

1 comment:

  1. Somehow I suspect the delight of a mother is something unique to mothers. It's a very specific kind of delight, I mean. It's partially that inevitable twinge of something like pride, but with such a large, healthy dose of humility that you certainly don't feel guilty for being so delighted.
    Meanwhile, since we're both bursting with potential, and other stuff, this is my second message of solidarity, so as to acknowledge the value in writing about it. My comments aren't as candid and concise as yours, but after all, we do have some differences, don't we?

    ReplyDelete