my last entry in this particular blog?...oh that would be january. january to june. seems to be the story and pace of our lives. i have to wonder, have i had no opportunity to be still in these past six months or so. it seems not. but we all know that is just not true. i have rested. i have relaxed. i have slept. and i have even sat and stared at the wall...well...maybe not the wall. but i cannot pretend that i have been completely void of a few extra minutes. it is also clear that i am not usually at a loss for words. there has been plenty to say. plenty of which to write. i have composed countless blog posts in my head. i have had no shortage of topics, thoughts and ideas. but... perhaps a more honest perspective is i have been missing some motivation. maybe missing the inclination. i know there will be a time in life where i will have some extra hours which stretch out ahead of me. there will be some unaccounted for minutes in my day where no one needs a bath or tissue or a meal. at least i think there will be a time like this. truth be told...i am Counting On It.lately i have had a strange attraction to front porches and rockers. i haven't met a rocker resting on a front porch that i haven't liked. i find them all inviting...all appealing...even friendly. i cannot walk near a porch without feeling an extreme sense of beckoning. these rockers and porches are a tiny taste of a simpler, gentler, slower dance. in the midst of my middle-aged rush, i long for those words. those ideas. i fully embrace my days of chasing children and containing chaos, but i have a spirit which requires dreams. it requires time to dream. it requires a place to dream. as a mother of many, i have found it more than challenging to dream in my day to day. in fact, i have found it very challenging to even think. i have become the mother who, in desperation, tells her children, "stop, and let me think!" at the age of 22, i would have bet money on me never muttering such an awful phrase. but now, i must. i am so seldom idle. and idle can be so very good. in fact, idle is necessary. perhaps i'll feel differently when my hair is gray and my nest is empty. perhaps then i will become more cautious...more skeptical...more wary. i might resist the urge to sit and rock for a while. knowing that the "while" could be too long. but right now...oh my. i find rockers and porches better than ice cream on a summer evening. i am charmed with the thought of a quiet front porch. i am entranced with the feeling of an evening breeze and the sound of distant crickets. i have even found myself photographing porches and rockers. i study angles and colors and lighting as if i was commissioned on some great work of art...or at least paid for a magazine spread. neither of which is remotely true. but nonetheless, i consider carefully each shot. someday i will have a photograph of me rocking gently in one of those chairs. someday. someday i will sit and i will write and i will write and i will write....or i will stare at the sea or the sky or even at that wall. and i will be still.
