I can’t think of very much more winning, in my experience, than being around an industrious young child—this week, it’s been my first grader, Remy—making Valentine’s. Making is kind of a partial description because, really, he’s been creating and churning them out, besides: twenty-three all told. Each one is exclusively red (pencil) and each reads Happy Valentine’s Day. He has, in the process, learned to spell V-a-l-e-n-t-i-n-e-‘s.
Beyond producing beautiful works of art, it’s really the combination of his sincerity and enthusiasm and enjoyment of working the themes—red, pencil, hearts, flowers, three sweet words—that’s just so very lovely to be near. He’s clearly happy working.
He got me to thinking about how happy I feel when I’m working, and somewhere in there, I’ve been walking around all day composing a little Valentine to my life, because sometimes, I don’t think I appreciate it enough.
Now, let me clarify: I do appreciate my family daily. In fact, there’s a great deal I take in with something approaching reverence on a very routine basis. I have noticed of this period in my life, perhaps in part because I walk around my neighborhood to-ing and fro-ing all the time, that I spend a lot of time observing and appreciating: the sky, the pond on the campus in the ‘hood, the trees, the view from my bathtub at night, my children’s unique eyes, the sunshine through the dining room window, the feel of my spine after I twist it enough, how caring my dear hubby is so much of the time, you name it.
But here I am at 46, a freelancer (aspiring or struggling, take your pick), a newbie blogger, essayist, op-ed writer, occasional minister, semi-regular radio talking head, fledgling student of PR and social media and all around brilliant networker-slash-brainstorm partner (oh, plus school-and-back Sherpa).
Important fact about me: I’m mother to four (the youngest just turned two), so I’ve been caring for young children for a long time, now. During these parenting-intensive years, I’ve served on non-profit boards, I’ve volunteered for kid-related institutions and helped out on many projects. My work, by no means, has approximated anything like a focused career form the whole way through. I mean, I practically spent the first year of my first child’s life stationed at a breast pump. Who could write much fiction (which is what I wrote then) under those circumstances? I was pumping (eight times a day) thank you very much. Other stuff happened, mostly family-related, things that consumed time and emotional space and maybe weren’t exactly accessible fodder for writing (or as one friend mused recently, “life is lifey,” yeah, true enough).
And anyway, besides all that, I don’t have a particular subject area or singular focus, even for my personal writing. Some of my friends, writers I admire, beam a wonderfully clear, bright light upon raising a special needs child (Jennifer Graf Groneberg has a semi-dormant blog, Pinwheels and also wrote a beautiful book, Road Map to Holland, about raising a child with Down Syndrome—and lots of other stuff, too—and Vicki Forman’s blog Speak Softly… and Carry the Proverbial Baton Grand as well as her Literary Mama column Special Needs Mama focused upon that topic, as did her gorgeous book This Lovely Life) or a range of other amazing topics. While I write about adoption, I don’t focus upon it enough to be called an adoption blog, exactly. I write about raising children who do not hew to societal gender conventions and yet I can’t quite say I’m a pink boy writer. And on like that my list goes.
Even my freelance life looks a bit scattered, both on the surface as well as if you dig right in. I’ve written for a range of publications about disparate topics, from the “Fathers’ Rights” movement to the latest installation at Mass MoCA to the greening of college campuses to pop culture’s fascination with celebrities’ pregnancies. I've contributed to Bitch magazine and Family Fun magazine, need I say much more?
When I’m feeling badly about myself (and I am trying to reckon with how very much of the time that is), I can see myself as kind of not moving very far forward. I can forget what is true far more of the time than not: I just adore (red pencil heart adore) what I do.
Seriously, writing for Preview Massachusetts magazine, I get to interview truly incredible people (right now, if you’re local and can grab a copy, you’d read my article on Sticks and Bricks’ Liz Karney, a lovely, talented woman restoring furniture to new and wonderful, fresh functionality and my interview with chef, educator and local food advocate Amy Cotler, who has a new book out called The Locavore Way). I get to ask roofers what they think of arborists and meet dogsled builders (how cool) and green architects and museum directors with deep penchant for downhill skiing… in short, it’s the most fun job practically ever.
Newer for me is writing reviews for Art New England and even newer was doing a piece for HandEye Design magazine. Both are affording me the opportunity to delve further into the worlds of art and craft, and get to encounter that many more accomplished, fascinating people along the way.
Gosh, there’s more. I’m off to officiate at a wedding this weekend, and wouldn’t you know that writing a wedding ceremony is incredibly fun and moving work, made that much more meaningful by being granted the honor of sharing in such a special moment with a couple (and often their friends and families). That’s in no way a career, just a little thing I do. I tend to write at least two or three annual appeal letters each year, and truthfully, I enjoy doing those, too. For nearly six years, I’ve edited (and often mostly wrote) the quarterly newsletter for the preschool my first grader attended and his baby sister now attends. Four times a year, I get to be knocked out by what a wonderful place Sunnyside is.
Having attended Quaker school and Quaker summer camp (a few years back, I wrote an article for the sadly departed New England Watershed magazine about summer camps in the region, including Farm and Wilderness Camps), the Gibran quote—Work is love made visible—has floated around the insides of my being for a very long time. Sometimes, it’s hard to hold onto that. I got an email from Jennifer Graf Groneberg yesterday (finishing touches on an interview, which should run soon): “I wanted to tell you you're doing a great job, and I can see the regular writing is having such a positive effect on your work,” she wrote. “I’m so proud of you!” Seriously, it’s incredibly affirming when people you love and admire are enjoying your work, that’s just a fact. Gibran is right. So was my long-ago friend Donna Riley, who often reminded me, “There’s no progressing or regressing, there’s just gressing.” True enough.
