Category Archives: home

My squirrelly niche…

A long time ago I started this blog with the vague idea that I would become a titan of the blogosphere, writing about being a mom and a lawyer, writing about saving the environment for my children, writing about making my own baby food while crossposting articles from my side gig writing for Attachment Parenting International.

During this time of grandiosity I studied the art of blogging as only a woman who just sat for the Bar Exam after three and a half years of intensive study and then became a stay at home mother in rural New Jersey can, obsessively. I learned you are supposed to choose your niche and write about it passionately, truthfully, and with a raw openness that lets complete strangers into your bleeding inner core in a way you don’t even let your friends in.

That my dears is the way to internet stardom.

Well I don’t have a problem with writing passionately, or really with bleeding my feelings all over the internet. Y’all are really pretty decent and besides, it’s not like I’m going to run into to you at the next cocktail party and have that embarrassing moment when you recognize me. No, my problem was always the niche.

See I, my dear friends, am an interest whore.

I am interested in ALL THE THINGS. I want to read about the things and learn to do the things and write about the things. I want to blog about being a mom and a spoonie and an artist who paints and also makes stuff in 3D and also draws and also makes cards but is also a poet but also writes serious stuff but writes about being sick but can cook and wants to share recipes and loves to take pictures and did you know I make jewelry and am a silversmith and am looking at wood working and oooooh let me share my photography with you and here’s the song I started writing to go with the Kalimba I started playing to help with pain management and do you Yoga and have you tried kayaking and did you know the neuroscience behind exercise and fibromyalgia and the venom in tarantulas in Peru and I have some really good ways my husband and I deal with being chronically ill and I can share those with you and I can talk about parenting teens and….

Yeah. What I am passionate about and interested in is the same thing a fleet of hyperactive squirrels on too much caffeine are interested in and passionate about. Everything.

So after years of trying to write about what fits in the narrowly defined idea of a blog about something other people might like to read I have just given up officially and am just going to put it all out here.

I’m writing down poems and sharing the art. I’m going to talk about the pain and the things that help, the kids and the world and the interesting things I find. I’m going to share and overshare and I am going to enjoy it. Because I finally did find my niche.

It’s me. I’m my niche.

Home is where the heart aches…

It hits me the hardest when I put down my luggage.
A stillness settles over me as my heart remembers you are no longer here to promptly sit on it while I try to put everything away.
I am defeated.

I will carry the memory of the loss of you with me for several more days before it settles back into the reality of my existence and the loss begins to be normal again.

You aren’t sitting on my lap and incessantly demanding I lie still to make up for the time we lost when I was away.

You aren’t rubbing against my face when I try to use the computer, insistent that all attention should be paid to you.
I’ve never had an easier time writing.

You aren’t tripping me on the stairs.

You aren’t batting my face in the night.

You aren’t.

An open letter to my daughter.

My beautiful amazing young woman.  You are perfect, just as you are.  You are brave, smart, loving, fun, spontaneous, beautiful, and kind.  I am proud of you.  I love you.

I am terrified for you.

You are turning into a woman.  You will soon have more and more freedom in your life, and while I know you are smart and thoughtful and will do your best to make good choices, I also know you are kind and generous, and may be mislead by the people in your life.

I know that the world holds opportunities and pitfalls, heroes and villians, teddy bears and monsters.

I can no longer protect you from life.  I cannot wrap you in my arms and make it go away with a kiss and a chocolate.  Now you begin to face the real world.  You will begin to see the harshness in addition to the beauty, the pain in addition to the joy.

Now the growing pains begin in earnest.

There is no way for me to stop you from embracing life and all the bruises that follow.  All I can do is promise you this:

I will speak openly and honestly with you about topics that embarrass us both so I may better fit you with appropriate weapons for your future battles.  I will not let discomfort prevent me from sharing with you the knowledge I gained from my own encounters.  I will hand down my armor in the clearest way possible.

I will keep the lines of communication open.  I will let you know that nothing you share with me will ever make me stop loving you, and I will reinforce the fact that there is nothing you can’t tell me.  Tell me anything, tell me everything.  I would rather know it all and be in a position to help you through it, than blindly fumble in the dark while you suffer.

I will not judge you.  I will worry about you.  I will work hard to make you understand the difference.  I will listen to your troubles and talk with you to help you make the decision that is best for who you are, not who I am.  If I get angry or sad about what you tell me, I will let you know the source of that anger or sorrow, and I will not let it get in the way of helping you. I will continue to love you and to listen.

The world is full of sharp and dangerous places.  I can’t stop you from wandering into them.  My parents couldn’t stop me.  All they could do was listen.  All anyone can do is provide you with a soft place to land when the sharpness cuts too deeply.

Let me be your soft landing place.  Let me be the place you run to heal.

I love you.