Still in a heady place over Deanna's fabulous interview. Before the interview, I admired her writing. After it, I just really like her. She's wonderful, isn't she? And yes, we will be doing the drawing this Friday. Everyone who commented in the interview post -and the pre-interview announcement posts- will be entered to win one of two books -that means two winners. Good luck all!
Today is my running around day -well running around for me. I am probably the world's most disorganized mom. PTA material I am not. Actually, I'm the one the PTA has meetings about, organizes hunting parties over, whatnot. So, par for the course, I was running late in dropping off DS to preschool.
We pull up in our usual hurry, me fumbling with the car seat, him smiling up at me with lazy contentment. "Mommy? Can you play that song again when you pick me up?"
Huh? Wha? It takes a moment for me to get the gist of his question and realize the song. It's Kyoto Song by the The Cure,. I hold back a sniffle (how can I not? He's loving Robert Smith!). Yes, we sure can, DS. For Barney will never be played in my car. I am not going to sing I'm A Little Tea Pot or I Love You, You Love Me, Let's get together and kill Barney...Oh, wait, it doesn't go like that... I don't care if this fact made me instantly unpopular with the hell click known as co-op mommies. But it makes me wonder... how much of what we do is based on the belief that it is what we ought to do?
How much of this life is lived playing a role that we had no part in crafting? I find myself falling into this trap all the time. Is this how I ought to be? Shouldn't I be doing this? Or that? And the guilt. The unmitigated guilt that I am not living up to some random ideal -It isn't easy to ignore.
And for what? And for whom? The only one _really_ judging is me.
We'll always be our own worst critic...wait, scratch that, there WILL be worse critics when it comes to your writing. Some smarmy yahoo will inevitably come around and tear you to shreds. Count on it. And let it go. But I digress, (g) when it comes to criticizing _who_ we are, our internal critic is the worst.
So perhaps my little revolt against the big purple menace is a good thing. Perhaps buying that pint of Hagen Daz and eating it to the bitter end isn't so bad if in doing so you gain a measure of independence against your oppressive inner critic. And perhaps writing whatever the damn hell you want to is pretty darn awesome too!
So today, I bid you, go forth raise a little anarchy in your writing world! Break all the rules and have a little fun. I'll leave you with a bit of light listening (g). DS would be so pleased.
Oh! I forgot to add, Jen is very sorry to have missed her post day this week. She's been fighting off a cold, but don't worry, she'll be back again next Tuesday. Get well, Jen!
I hear you on the version of Barney's song. My eldest sings it that way, too, when she's not singing something very similar about Elmo. And she's nine. Both of my girls are liable to beg me to play "Wolf with the Red Roses" or _Lips of an Angel_ (by Hinder) when we're in the car. (That first one is actually a Meatloaf song, _You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth_. But the spoken word intro is the part they remember.) I figure they'll turn to something like country to torture me when they grow into teenagers... ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to balance the inner critic against the editor so neither of them shuts off the creativity completely. It's an uphill fight, but I'm not giving up. And I'm getting some glimmers of where I want an "end" to be, which means there's some chance I'll eventually have a SFD that I can turn my inner editor loose on. But I'm still wondering if I can spin two separate stories out of this morass. Might, just possibly, be do-able.
Sending get-well wishes to Jen. I've been fighting off the crud since before the New Year.
Best to you and yours!
Gretchen
Get well soon Jen!
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I hope my future kids are into The Cure and all sorts of other good stuff and that I never have to hear any Barney or Hannah Montana type nonsense. *shudder*
Anarchy, huh? How about the fact that I had Rose in love with this one guy, who left his family and came across country to be with her, and now - through no fault of his own - he's laid up with seasickness and she's spending more and more time with this other guy.......