The Final Mylestone (subtitled: It's over when the skinny boy plays the recorder)

Lately, I recoil at the idea of writing here like a skittish old cat, not trusting the sound of my voice, unwilling to venture even one foot forward. So I pad back into the shadows, waiting for a clear coast or a courageous surge. Neither of which seems to be forthcoming.

This won't be a dramatic goodbye. It isn't a screeching halt. The stories I've told here are the slow dripping sand of an hour glass. It's been a very long time, and we've had a good many stories. I just think it might be time to turn the glass over, to start again.

More than five years of life I've simmered here in words, boiling it all down in search of substance, like a pound of beans that soak and spin and cook for hours on end. Eventually, the water evaporates and the beans grow tender. And you can't leave the burner on forever, not unless you want to ruin the beans and stink up the house. You guys, these days my words are at most a mist, and my heart is fall-apart tender. It's just time.

After I figure out how to preserve the blog in print for my own benefit, I plan on taking it down completely.  It might as well be purged from Google search results before the kids hit their teen years and need therapy. Really, I think my recent discomfort with this space is almost entirely driven by the need for more anonymity, a little shawl of it for me and a complete cloak of it for my children.

Whether with the help of ink or the internet,  I'll continue to write. And if you're so inclined, you can follow any future online writing here. (It's really just a placeholder right now--not much content yet. But I've set it up so you can subscribe via email or a reader, and then when I get going again, you'll hear about it automatically.)

This is probably the part of the show where I should get all weepy and sentimental about the very last milestone on Mylestones. Because we know it's not over until the fat lady sings and the sappy mom cries.

But I hate to be so cliche, so I fired the fat lady and cast a skinny eight year old boy to play us out with a jaunty tune on his recorder. I'll spare you the audio and just tell you it's Hot Cross Buns, and it would totally make you cry.

The End.

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Rusty

When I think about this space, I see wet leaves sticking to a tractor, more rusty than red. I left it out in the rain, uncovered, unvarnished. If I'm not going to put it to use, I should at least cover it. But when I see it outside my window on my way to doing something else, I only sigh. I'll take care of it tomorrow, I think. And now it seems only an eyesore, something I should clear from the yard.

I began telling stories here before she was a year old, before he was potty trained, before big girl beds and little boy bikes, before I felt like something other than an overtired mother, before I remembered who I was.

I used to write my way to calm and connection. I found both here, tilling stubborn soil until it became ground from which I could grow. This weekend I spent the better part of the day with a local friend I first met through blogging. Our whole families were together for nearly six hours, and it felt like fifteen minutes. If this was the only fruit that grew from this space, it would've been enough.

But there was so much more.
I found mythic moments in the mundane.
I found ways to laugh and smile when I wanted to cry and hide.
I found my voice.
I found I wasn't alone.

My children are eight and nearly six now. Unfathomable to me, but true. I started telling their stories five years ago, and out of their stories, found the courage to tell my own. But now....now it's not that I've run out of stories. It's just that so very few of them feel like they are mine to tell anymore. I feel an increasing urge to shield my children from overexposure.

As for my own stories, I'm struggling to find time to tell them, so engrossed I've become in living them. Maybe that's a sorry excuse on my part. Maybe I'm just not brave or diligent or dogged enough to keep tilling the soil. Maybe. But whether my reason is one of wisdom or cowardice, this seems like it might be the season to let the earth lie fallow.

I won't shut this place down, not yet anyway. I'll continue to write as I feel the urge, when I find the time. I just came here today because, well, because I felt like I ought to explain why there's a rusty old tractor in the yard.

Just writing today, with Heather.

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City Mouse Versus Country Mouse

We are home after a week of house hunting, and I simply cannot decide whether I am a city mouse or a country mouse.

I wake up feeling in love with the little old houses oozing charm at the expense of closet space, standing shoulder to shoulder on the tree-lined street like smiling toy soldiers. I picture myself walking the kids to the library, to school, to the park, to grab a cocoa and a coffee. I envision cook outs and community and a short commute.

And then I go to sleep picturing myself lounging on a deck on a summer's evening, gazing into a dark wood while the crickets fiddle a thousand good nights. I imagine Larry stoking the fire in the wood burning stove while the snow silently spreads a blanket on the lawn. I wonder if when Saturday breaks on the country lot, my children might already be the age at which I say, "Go play!", sending them into familiar acres behind the house to explore creeks and to fashion twigs into forts.

Of course, I could be happy anywhere as long as we are together as a family. But it doesn't stop me from asking--from wondering--what suits us best? Where will we be the happiest? What is the best choice for us?
::

So what are you--a city mouse or a country mouse? What do you love most about the city or the country? And--whether you know me outside of this blog or not--what do you picture me as--the city or country type? (C'mon! We could use some swaying to one side or the other. Although, that being said, if we end up where you sway us and hate it, you know Larry is going to blame the blog for all eternity. But no pressure or anything.)

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