banned banner thoughts

As you might have noticed, I got rid of my banner. I didn't like the old banner anymore, but even though it grated on my nerves every time I saw it, I couldn't take it away because... i didn't have a pretty new banner to replace the old one. And this got me thinking. About why my blogging has been rather sporadic these last few months, even though my mind is so full. And I have reached the conclusion that I keep running into the same snag with this blog, and it's a snag I run into in other places too (surprise surprise!).

It has to do with the gap between how my mind/being actually functions and how I think it ought to.

Me, I have a number of interests in life: a voracious reader of both fiction and non-fiction; really really into food (both on the eating and the 'making of' end); a radical feminist; a craftster; a student of drawing and painting; a photographer in the making; concerned about the education system and what it does to children, and how and whether I can avoid the worst of it for my child; concerned about the environment and how I can make a difference, right here right now; concerned about how girls are portrayed in children's literature, and avidly searching the world for appropriate reading for my daughter; wanting to write children's books myself; concerned about the consumer society and regularly making desperate attempts to change my own consuming patterns; practicing yoga; really into philosophy, religion and spirituality; really into body work psychotherapy; really into self-analysis and wanting one day to be a therapist myself; passionate about giving birth and everything surrounding that process and dreaming of becoming some kind of professional dealing with pregnant/birthing women; attempting to grow things on my hot hot balcony; writing poetry; reading poetry; baking bread; music; films; organic food; etc., etc., etc.

The only thing is, I'm not into all of this at once. What happens in fact is that I tend to obsess on one or two topics for a period of a few months, making fast advances and fascinating discoveries on the way, and then I 'lose interest'. There follows a period akin to a hibernation of the mind, in which nothing much seems to be going on, and I spend most of my time either watching light comedies, BBC costume dramas and detectives on TV or reading The Forsyte Saga. This is a period in which I tend to judge myself for not 'sticking with things', for always 'dropping out', for 'not knowing my mind'.

Until one day, something catches my attention, and I'm off again, on some wild wild ride to discover and learn more.

What I have come to see, though, is that these periods of 'nothing' are really needed for all the new stuff to settle, to find a place, to take root. That every time I come back to a topic/idea, it is with more depth of understanding and a clearer idea of both my thought and the concrete actions that follow from it. So in that sense, it really is like winter hibernation, when all growth takes place underground, where you cannot see it, which doesn't mean it is not happening.

The other thing that I have come to realize is that I do not have to make a choice of one or two things that interest me and stick to them for life. In fact, my life is infinitely richer because I have many many things that I am passionate about. And what's more, different though these interests may seem on the surface, they cross-fertilize each other constantly and are in fact part of a larger pattern, a pattern I will probably never be able to see in its entirety, since I am sitting at the heart of it, weaving the tapestry of my life.

Back to the blog. I keep thinking of it as a 'crafting/photograph blog'. And I haven't been crafting or taking photographs since I got pregnant. So I haven't been blogging.

I have been reading though, and doing yoga every single day, and coming up with exciting discoveries about parenting, about buddhism, about consumerism, about what does in fact grow on my balcony, about guerilla gardening, and much much more.

And I have been dying to write it all down right here. But none of it involves a needle or a thread. And there are no pictures to support it either. So I have been silent. And a little bit sad. Afraid to disappoint you (of whom I know nothing, not even whether you exist), and disappointing myself in the process.

Thus freedom begins: with a banner, or rather without one. And may the white space above stand witness to how open this blog is to whatever happens to be on my mind.