The secret to successful blogging is to be involved in real life relationships that involve give-and-take emotional intimacy.  If all of your social life takes place on the computer (blogs, twitter, facebook, forums, etc.), eventually you will step away and find that there is nothing left.  Those kind of relationships are about connecting with others without giving yourself, and that is no key to intimacy.  You can’t blog and expect to find the sort of relationships your heart desires.  You have to build the relationships and have a life outside of the internet first.

I need to get a notebook and a pencil and a headlamp for my bedside table.  I thought of a brilliant blog post at 5 a.m. as I dozed during the first snooze alarm.  As soon as I woke up completely, I couldn’t remember what the brilliant blog post was about, all I remember is that it was brilliant.

It took me 5 weeks to detox from the internet.  While I didn’t do anything as drastic as shaving my head a la Brittney Spears, I did do a lot of playing and a lot of driving (4000+ miles ROAD TRIP) and only came back to the internet when I realized that I missed my blogging.

Deep within me, there is a very old woman and a 6 year old living in conflict.

The very old woman is the one who, when I was in High school, thought I should only wear ankle-length skirts and avoid v-neck shirts like the plague. The very old woman gets caught up in all the things that I should be doing and forgets about how much I like to walk outside and pick flowers. The very old woman is a very tired woman.

My 6 year old laughs a lot and puts a boquet of wild flowers in a crystal vase.  She dances in the rain and can’t resist puddle jumping. My 6-year old spirit likes to lay in the grass and look at the clouds. She likes to run barefoot all summer.

When I got married, the very old woman told the 6 year old that it was time for me to grow up and start being responsible. The very old woman started directing my attention towards saving money, cleaning house, and simple living. The 6 year old hung around making a few crafts that involved cutting up lots of little bits of paper and taking pictures of bugs and mushrooms.

When I had a baby, the very old woman told the 6 year old that little bits of paper aren’t child friendly and neither are bugs or mushrooms. Cameras should be used for capturing Baby’s every moment, saving money and cleaning house are more important than ever. “Sunny doesn’t have time to play,” said the very old woman. “She needs to focus on more important things.”

The 6 year old was silenced, but my spirit could hear her crying. When I looked for my 6 year old self, I couldn’t find her. She wasn’t hiding in the dandylions or wading in the river. I couldn’t find her in my craft supplies either. I feared that the very old woman had won. But when I was presented with the chance to drive halfway across America with a 7 month old in the back, my inner 6 year old jumped up and shouted, “I call shotgun!”

I started July with a 21 hour drive (twice) that involved admiring rainbows and sunsets and cool looking thunderheads. Re-evaluating how serious I had let life get, and ending with a new resolve to play more.

The 6 year old came out with gusto! She dared me to cut off the internet. And I accepted her dare–I’ll call just as soon as it is Monday. I decided to cancel our internet on Friday evening. By Sunday afternoon I chickened out, and decided that I just can’t live without my internet. Before I told Brenton that I had changed my mind, he had cut the cable and put siding over the hole (we are re-siding our house this summer).

Ah well, my 6-year old said, lets pick cherries instead,  so I climbed to the very top of the ladder and filled an ice cream bucket with tart pie cherries. By the end of the week I had canned 10 quarts of cherries and mourned that I don’t own a taller ladder to pick the rest of those juicy red gems.

“Let’s write,” She said. So I pulled out a pen and paper and we wrote. We wrote letters (that will never get sent) and we wrote stories and we wrote to our heart’s content. At the end of the week, we went camping and hiking with Brenton’s family.

When we hiked to the mountain lake, my 6-year old said, “OH! Water! Can I get in.” There is something irrisistable about water to a 6 year old. So it began–just my toes, then my feet, then wading up to my ankles, then up to my knees. OOPS! My pants got wet. Might as well not worry about staying dry now!

The very old woman fought back with a vengance. I’m convinced that she is the one who causes my migraines. They always come when I have been out playing and enjoying myself.

My 6 year old spirit has her foot back in the door and she is a determined little fighter–hair flying every which way, bruised knees, wild eyes.

She won’t give up, and I’m not sure she is going to let the very old woman have the internet back either.

Mopping the floors is great meditation.  Especially when, as I am mopping I notice the beautiful wood grain of the 97 year old fir floors underneath the mop head.  And as I mop I begin to imagine how beautiful the floor will be when we finally get to refinish them.  Of course we won’t be refinishing the floors until after we finish paying off those student loans.  We are back on the Dave Ramsey plan.  Mopping the floors shows me just one more reason why we need to be gazelles.

If I’m ever going to become a writer, I will have to accept that someone else’s formula for writing won’t work for me.  I have to be myself because I am unique, and I want to write in hopes that there is someone else in the world just a little bit like me.

Maine Coon Kittens By elda1 CC-BY-NC

Twenty-six years old and I am dead.  My heart still beats.  I still breathe in Oxygen and expire Carbon Dioxide.  All my vital functions are strong, but I know that it is a facade.

My spirit is flat.

I approach my dreams with equal doses of conceit and self-doubt.  My villans do battle on my shoulder–the screaming and shouting of battle is so loud that I can’t hear myself think.

I know that if I sat down to write, I could write the great American novel.  I fear that if I sit down to write, that I would have nothing to say.

Through the battle, a scrawn golden kitten with mangy fur and big sad eyes looks up at me and meows.  “Don’t give up,”  she says.  Those Sad eyes plead with me.  I know that to give up on my dreams would mean the death of that sad-eyed kitten.  To give up on my dreams would be the death of me.  To fight on above the battle…perhaps that kitten could someday be a lion.

The sun is shining in my dining room window.  I’m watching the snow-melt drip off the roof above the window.  The branches on the apple tree are also dripping as last night’s snow turns to liquid and drips down onto the snow below.  The yard is blanketed in three feet of snow, and I’m sitting inside dreaming of the day (still a few months away) when I will look at my husband dreamily and say, “Honey, it’s time.”

He will shake the winter out of his bones, pull the shovel out of the back shed, and begin to dig up the soil to create a garden bed.

Together we will gather up the pile of bricks that somebody carelessly into the garden plot.  We will dig out the slate rocks that got put in there too.  The bricks will become the walls of a compost pile so I can create some garden gold.  The slate will become rock pathways between our square foot garden blocks.

Two blocks this summer–four foot square.  Two more blocks next summer.  We’ll keep adding blocks, two at a time, until we have enough.  As we add more blocks, hopefully we will be able to stay supplied in a variety of fresh vegetables all summer and even put a winter’s worth of homegrown produce up during canning season.

I’m dreaming of spring and our apple, pear, cherry, and plums trees being covered in blossoms, bees buzzing lazily about, the air heavy with the scent of lilacs. Summer trees heavy laden with ripe fruit. Cookouts and camping.  Swimming and swinging at the park.  I’m dreaming of long sunny days and stargazing at night.  Firecrackers on Fourth of July.

I’m dreaming of summer, but today I’ll content myself with a warm patch of sunshine on my living room floor.

Next time someone asks you what you do at home all day, you can answer, “I’m building cathedrals.” The text that follows is slightly different than the video, but the message is the same:

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I’m on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I’m thinking, ‘Can’t you see I’m on the phone?’ Obviously, not.

No one can see if I’m on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I’m invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I’m not a pair of hands; I’m not even a human being. I’m a clock to ask, ‘What time is it?’ I’m a satellite guide to answer, ‘What number is the Disney Channel?’ I’m a car to order, ‘Right around 5:30 , please.’

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude – but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She’s going; she’s going; she is gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England … Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, ‘I brought you this.’ It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe I wasn’t exactly sure why she’d given it to me until I read her inscription:

‘To Charlotte , with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.’

In the days ahead I would read – no, devour – the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:

• No one can say who built the great cathedrals – we have no record of their names.
• These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.
• They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
• The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, ‘Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it. And the workman replied, ‘Because God sees.’ I closed the book, feeling the missing pieces fall into place.

It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, ‘I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you’ve done, no sequin you’ve sewn on, no cupcake you’ve baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can’t see right now what it will become.’

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.

The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don’t want my son to tell the friend he’s bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, ‘My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.’ That would mean I’d built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, ‘you’re gonna love it there.’

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we’re doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

I dream of being a writer.  I mean I guess I am a writer since I write, but I dream of being a writer whose work has the publishers stamp of approval.

“Write what you know.” That’s the advice all the writing teachers, magazines, websites give out.  With that advice, all I feel like I am qualified to write is a book titled How Not to be a Writer.  I could chronicle my daily adventures of reading emails, changing diapers, washing dishes, folding laundry, comforting the baby, changing more diapers, sitting at the computer and trying to think up what to write.  Maybe on the last page of the book I could draw a cartoon of a publisher–complete with red eyes, horns coming out of his head, and the blood of some aspiring authors dream oozing out from between his teeth.  He would be surrounded by shredded manuscripts and a cloud of rejection letters.  Each manuscript represents years of someone’s life. Down in the corner, one small author with long, curly brown hair attempt to crawl away unnoticed, manuscript still in hand.

Ah yes, that’s the book I’m qualified to write.