Kick in the Pants

Sunday, 01 January 2012 22:33

I used to be a writer. Used to be a dreamer. Used to care more about the moments happening now than the end result later. More about experiences than expenses.

I'm feeling a bit lost heading into 2012. A feeling I've decided is actually healthy. It's time for me to sort some goals out on paper, to jump start living the life I used to imagine. 

There will always be obstacles, opinions, and walls in the way of your dreams... but that's why we don't come with an auto-pilot - because we must accept the responsibility of navigating, risking, and flying bravely into whatever may come.

2012, let's kick some ass. Happy New Year.

http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2012/01/dreamchaser/

http://jasminestarblog.com/index.cfm?postID=1287&pick-up-your-pen

Disconnect

Thursday, 14 July 2011 02:35

Tonight my older sons and I rode our bikes to Safeway for groceries. There is something nice about only bringing home what you can carry on three sets of handlbars rather than stuffing a trunk full of processed foods or stockpiling. As we rode, we talked. I learned that Roman (5) can talk to cats. "I know what they are saying most of the time and they understand me." And then he meowed in varying pitches and tones for about four blocks. He also, apparently, has magical invisible buttons on his handlbars. "This one is for turbo-boost!" And as he rides down hills I hear him, muttering under his breath, "medium, medium, medium speed."

Christian (7) mostly showed off his BMX-style tricks - bumping down curbs and popping wheelies. He rode past me, fast, then turned around and jaunted slowly back towards his slower, younger brother and I.

I let them strategically bag the groceries and figure out how to counter-balance the weight across each bicycle when we left the store. I, of course, carried the bottle of wine and half-gallon of milk along with the apples on one side and the veggies on the other. Christian had the toilet paper and the bread and Roman carried the two small bags of treats I'd let them choose - oatmeal cookies & goldfish crackers. We were a happy little train - stopping and looking and talking and laughing.

I wouldn't have had those conversations and I wouldn't have had that memory had we spent our night camped in front of a movie or curled up playing Nintendo DS. Even reading together, which we often do, doesn't lend itself to the same free-spirited conversation. Our topics changed with every hill and corner and block.

Perhaps I'm relishing these moments even more because I just finished Susan Maushart's book "The Winter of our Disconnect" which chronicles "how three totally wired teenagers and a mother who slept with her iPhone pulled the plug on their technology and lived to tell the tale." The book was an easy but fascinating read. Maushart managed to introduce and endear me to her children (and herself) while sprinkling the book with interesting statistics and stories of technologys hold on our modern world. Perhaps my favorite moments in the book were when her son, aged 15, helped carry the big-screen tv out of his bedroom and then later picked up the musical instruments he'd laid aside as he'd "grown up." Music had given way to video games and relationships to facebook. And I see it already, in my own children, and I am screaming for it to stop.

I'll never be able to completely pull the plug. Okay, I could, but I don't think I want to. But I do want to raise children who read and write and talk and argue about things that matter - not just who is sitting closer to the TV.