why I don't want to be a "blogger"

I’ve been writing for a long time. You see, I was one of those girls who grew up idolizing Anne (and Emily!), Betsy, and Jo. They all wanted to be writers, and as for me, well, reading stories was my best escape. I couldn’t imagine anything better than being a writer, too.

And so a writer I was. I climbed into a mesquite tree, nailed an empty bandaid box to its limb (Betsy had used a cigar box, but I wasn’t sure what that was), and kept tiny notebooks inside, where I wrote stories about disobedient children who were struck by lightning or mauled by bears. My first novel was entitled, “The White Haired Twins and the Mysterious Light in the Woods”. In junior high and highschool I wrote down my prayers every single night, and I wrote a dreamy short story that won something somewhere.

In college, of course, poetry and I had a fling; but mostly I turned to creative nonfiction, the essay, and academics. I won some little awards, I was published in some Christian places. I moved to Asia at 22, and to keep in touch, I started a blog. In the early mornings, I also worked on my second book, a work of nonfiction critiquing syncretism in the American church (that American flag at the front of the sanctuary? Let’s start with that.)

In Asia, there was my spiritual tailspin, when God grew silent, and I got quieter too. Maybe I became a little less likely to think I had something to say that was worth saying, or that I was sure was true.

But when I came back to California, I kept blogging, at least enough to say, “Here’s what I’m reading, and listening to, and - oh yeah - the man I’m in love with.”

After we married, I created this blog, and it, like all my blogging, has been personal. I write as a personal record of my life for myself, primarily, and for my family, who are always too far away. I’m not trying to write for a public audience. It might be fair to say that any ambition for writing went down with my faith in that tailspin of 2004.

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A couple of years ago, my lovely sister and I were complaining about a certain someone who writes as a “voice of our generation,” a man whose opinions on pop culture and “hipster christianity” we often disagree with. Katie said, “Why can’t YOU be the voice of our generation?” and (though deeply touched) I thought, “May it never be!” I’m postmodern enough to know that I can’t speak for a whole generation. I wouldn't even want to, if I could.

There’s a loud cacophony of voices speaking for my generation on the internet right now. I tend to think there are too many, and I don’t want to add to the clamor. I want to make it my ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind my own business and to work with my hands. I want to exist in a physical world with bread dough sticking to my hands and dirt under my fingernails (though hopefully not at the same time), with my feet planted and roots spiraling down. I want to talk with the woman smoking on her front porch across the street and the artists down the block and the cashier at the Dollar$mart. I want to bring you a casserole when you have a baby, not just tweet some congratulations at your disembodied self.

Besides that, the relentless self-promotion that seems to be required of “bloggers” has always turned me off. Maybe I’m a part of this Millennial generation, but I can’t stomach the idea that being the entrepreneurial generation means “we’re always selling ourselves. We use social media to create a product — to create a brand — and the product is us. We treat ourselves like little businesses, something to be managed and promoted.” (If I was trying to create myself as a product, I would not have linked to my earlier blogs! This is my honest, messy, changing self, not a carefully polished product.)

And when people ask me about “my writing,” I tend to downplay it. “I’m more of a reader than a writer,” I say, honestly enough.

“I just wanted to be a writer because my favorite books were about writers when I was growing up.” I claim it was a childish ambition, like being a spy (another one of my childhood dreams).

“I’m really too young to know what I want to say, yet. Maybe I’ll have something to say when I’m older.”

But this spring I’ve done a little writing, and I feel something kicking inside of me. Maybe it's a love of recognition; but maybe it's a love of writing. I didn’t know how much I missed that feeling.

All my reservations and excuses still stand. But I think I'm going to be writing more.

to be happy

You can't make paella without saffron, and I forgot to buy saffron when I did the grocery shopping on Monday.

The paella is non-negotiable, as it is in honor of our sole Spanish student in the ESL program, and the end-of-semester dinner is nine hours away. So 8:30 AM finds us in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

We shop quickly and successfully, gliding through the aisles. I'm a marvel of a parent. The three year old and the one year old stay in the cart, with only minor whining. We get to the checkout.

And then. Of course. For some reason they won't let me pay with the diaper, the pink Pull-Up, the half-bag of Cadbury eggs left over from Easter, the plastic cell phone, or even my keys. I've exhausted the contents of my green suede purse. My wallet is in my red leather school satchel. At home.

It's not a big deal. It's just that our four square miles of town rests a solid 25 minutes from any grocery store which might carry saffron.

I sigh. We rebuckle carseats and prepare for another hour in the car.

"What's wrong, mommy?" Rosie asks.

"I'm just feeling a little mad at myself for forgetting my purse," I admit. (I euphemize. A little mad: reasonable substitute for pissed off.)

"Don't be mad, mommy. God wants us to be happy."

"Does he?" I ask. I am really asking.

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I tell her I will turn on some music to try to cheer myself up. I search for the CD with Adele and Fleet Foxes and Joanna Newsom. I tell her we will stop at the coffeeshop and get ourselves a little cinnamon treat to cheer ourselves up.

God wants us to be happy.

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The last thing I want is to teach my daughter to believe in some kind of easy, name-it-claim-it happy faith.

No, the last thing I want is to teach her that she has to deny her emotions -- anger, frustration -- and pretend to be happy, because that's what God wants her to be.

And I don't think I've taught her that. I try to model expressing negative emotions in healthy ways. (Of course, I also seem to model medicating emotions with music and sugar-indulgence. Need to work on that.)

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But I'm also not going to argue with her when she says that God wants us to be happy. I'm not going to say, "But what if God is more interested in us being holy than happy?"

She's not old enough to understand the ways in which being holy is the same as being happy. Maybe I'm not old enough to understand that either.

I believe God wants us to be happy. And I know why Rosie believes it. She heard it in the Bible, the one we've already read a half a dozen times.

From the beginning, God's children had been running from him and hiding. God knew his children could never be happy without him. But they couldn't get back to him by themselves -- they were lost, they didn't know the way back...

Jesus knew it was nearly time for him to leave the world and go back to God.
"I won't be with you long," he said. "You are going to be very sad. But God's Helper will come. And then you'll be filled up with a Forever Happiness that won't ever leave.
So don't be afraid.
You are my friends
and I love you.

We have reason to be happy. I just needed to be reminded.