Even though I am still sick sick sick (and sick) and so not thinking very straight (and can’t talk at all — my voice is gone) I wanted to chime in on this over at Letters to a Birthmother:

Despite our firm belief that overall openness is a good thing–the right thing–, there are events that happen within the relationship that are clearly not so positive.  Those not so positive things often don’t make it to press due to their sensitive nature–whether its just too private to discuss a particular detail about the event (does it boil down to “gossip”?, or that its one of those “my child’s story to tell” moments that we, ourselves can’t own.  For me, quite honestly, I struggle with the thought that if I talk about the negatives, am I being seen as “bashing” Woob’s firstmom, or openness, or adoption in general?  Bottom line, there are parts of the story we don’t feel at liberty to tell.

So here’s the question–if you’re not sharing “the whole picture”, good, bad and ugly, does it make the blog a farce or a sham?  Is it still “the truth?”.  DISCUSS

Obviously I think sensitivity to our children’s stories and our children’s parents’ stories has to be paramount. However, I do think there are times we need to find ways to talk about the hard stuff IF that’s part of why we’re blogging (to inform people about openness). I mean, that’s not always why all of us are blogging. It’s a big reason why I blog — I want to communicate something true about our lives that will hopefully be useful to people. But then, I’m a writer and I write to be read and I write to be heard and I write because I want to (in whatever small way I can) change the world. Not just about adoption either. But there are so many reasons to blog like sharing info with friends & family, keeping a record for yourself, working things out (I write for all those reasons, too). Which is to say, I don’t expect someone who’s writing a gentle adoption blog to keep grandparents up to date to sit around mindf*cking adoption ethics and I also don’t expect someone who’s writing total baby book entries for their child one day to use that space to struggle with difficult issues that they’re dealing with in their open adoption relationships. There’s a time and a place, you know? And blogs are as varied as their writers.

I think there are ways to be truthful and sensitive both. I think we can focus on our feelings more and on specific situations less. I think we can use metaphors to tell true stories, too. Like my green steno pad post that has nothing to do with green steno pads. It can be hard but I like the challenge of it. I like trying to blog true and honest without compromising how much I want to share. Sometimes I get it wrong but I like trying.

I feel frustrated when people totally lie by omission IF they’re setting themselves up as examples. So like let’s say there’s a gardener blog who blogs about being an organic gardener? And is really, “You all should do it like me” but secretly she’s putting Miracle Grow all over her lawn. That drives me crazy whatever the blog genre. I like it when people are willing to blog more complicated but I also understand that there are some folks who are living out a virtual fantasy life of how they wish things could be but still, it’s always a disappointment when I discover someone has been painting a false picture.

There are things I wish I could share on blog so that people couldn’t say, “Yeah, but open adoption works for you because you don’t ever deal with XYZ” and sometimes they’re wrong because we (Pennie and I) DO deal with XYZ but it’s more than I’m going to set out on the internet.

Anyway, between total (and sometimes hurtful) honesty and blatant dishonesty, there’s a lot of room for figuring it out and we’re all going to draw different lines in the sand.

Anyway. I’m going to go take more cold medicine now.

I’ve been thinking a lot about digital storytelling. The concept has interested me since I first heard about it and then Alison asked if I’d help teach a class on it this December for Fuse Factory. It’s part of thinking, too, about how publishing is changing and figuring out what’s next.

I’ve always been interested in mixed media work. Way back when I was a teenager, I wanted to do a multimedia project with some artist friends based on this (really terrible) collection of prose poems I had. I was picturing an installation with painters, film makers and musicians but I never got past a lot of intense conversations about Art over tea at the King Avenue Coffee House with various interested parties. The internet has made this kind of thing a lot easier and I’ve been collecting stories about it over at this tumblr: Fresh Hell Creative.

Right now I’m trying to get a handle on some of the technology. I’ve wanted to do some kind of installation project around adoption and I have a couple of ideas in mind. I’d like to do something that could grow beyond what I can do and invite others to join in because the other thing that fascinates me about the internet is that people can create something together that becomes more than the sum of the parts.

Look at this thing that HBO created, for example: HBO Imagine

(Check it out — I’ll wait!) (Don’t have time to look? Ok, it’s a flash-based cube and you can watch a story from any side. Once you’ve watched part, you are connected to a matrix that you can work through to lead you back to another side of the cube. It’s about getting a story from more than one perspective.)

Isn’t that amazing? Can you imagine an actual documentary like that told from the perception of different people involved in an adoption? That’s a bigger project than I’m thinking on but wouldn’t it be amazing?

I am fascinated by the stories we tell each other and that we tell ourselves. I am fascinated by the way we write our stories true and the way that truth is subjective. I’m interested in taking one piece of something and digging into it to see how it connects to the whole.

So that’s what I’ve been thinking on lately (when I’m not thinking about work, homeschooling, parenting, adoption, going back to school or the sublime man I live with). And I’ve been downloading different stuff to try to learn how to work it.

Oh and please vote for me!

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Now playing on iTunes: Talk Of The Nation Hour 2 <–and it just so happens to be an interview with Tina Brown about Book Beast and e-publishing! See, the times they are a-changing and it’s scary but it’s exciting, too!
via FoxyTunes

Back to this post.

I just keep thinking about this as a writer and as a (small-time) activist. I want to understand the universal in my specifics and I want to understand when I’m mistakenly extending my experience to other people.

I was thinking on this after I read momartfully’s excellent single mom post:

Single Moms — Web Outcasts

And I think of it now and then specifically around an essay that was in (I think) the Guardian, which I can’t find anymore and it points out that all the books about motherhood are written by writers, which means that writing mothers dominate the cultural discussion about motherhood, kinda the way the blog world thinks every mommy blogger is writing blithely at home between loads of sparkling laundry. (Watch Punditmom — only partially successfully — try to make this point to the Wall Street Journal.)

I think about how often people have said to me, “YOUR open adoption works that way but you can’t assume ours does.”

I think about that a lot.

I don’t really have a point except that I’m thinking about it and thinking, like I said, about how to express the universal from my specific and I think the only way to do that is to KNOW what’s specific, which isn’t always easy.

I’m filing this under writing because that’s how I’m thinking about it.

Work. Life. You know — the usual.

I’m coming to terms with the fact that my days as a true stay-at-home mom are over, never to return and grieving it hard. That’s not to say that I’m not grateful for work and mortgage payments and the ability to bring income to our household but man, I loved the season of being at the beck and call to my children alone. I mean, I’ve been working from home for years but this is a true 40+ hour a week job and even if I’m telecommuting three of those days, it’s a job. An actual job with a schedule and time constraints.

I’ve been trying very hard to ignore my sadness about said job because like I said, I’m so grateful for it (I really am) but I realized ignoring my sadness isn’t doing me much good so now I’m letting it out here on blog where I’ve been putting on a happy face as best I can for awhile.

So …

I’m having a tough time. I miss being a stay-at-home mother or at least having a stay-at-home spouse. I miss being able to playdate at will, fieldtrip at will, clean my house in a timely and efficient manner, grocery shop on whatever day groceries need to be bought, etc. I know this is extra-whiny because I’m damn lucky that for more than a decade I got to do those things but I miss doing them now. And goddamn but I miss having time to write. Because this full-time job is sucking up all the precious brainspace in my head and I haven’t written at all since I started (not counting occasional book reviews and heck, even this blog has suffered).

Thinking about how UNhappy some of this makes me is also making me think about things I can do to bring the happy back but it’ll be awhile because there are some obstacles I can’t get into here being sensitive and stuff (for now).

Anyway. I’m having a tough time of it, tougher than I’ve let on and it’s one reason you haven’t been hearing from me as much.

Ah well.

I crashed hard today and now I know why the boss was pretty insistent that we take today off from work. I did a little bit of checking in and sending (press releases, mostly) but tried to stay away from the computer over all.

I really miss writing.

I’m having a hard time figuring out how to fit it in between home and work and I’m feeling depressed about it. It seems like lately my free time (like weekends) are taken up with not-quite-work things like the adoption conference and workshops to lead and tomorrow I’ve got a video chat thingie for the Mothering and Blogging book launch (I have an essay in the book). Then the kids have soccer and religious school and visits with extended family, etc. I’m tired and weepy and missing the time and motivation to get any writing done.

Things I wanted to write about:

1. That one of the pleasures of watching Mandy and Patti sing was thinking on how delivering the same songs over and over and over could make you stale or could make you really understand every possible nuance of a song. And that made me think about what it might be like to take an incident and write it over and over and over as an exercise but formally (like for a blog) so that you’d be forced to write with purpose (and not just free write an incident over and over and over because this is what freewriting for an essay often is for me anyway). I might try that this week, especially since I’ve been too busy/exhausted to come up with blog fodder.
2. How much I like people and getting to know people and how everyone has an interesting story just by default but how liking people and caring about random strangers is also what drives me to introversion. I was thinking on this after I talked to a self-described extrovert that doesn’t really like asking people questions because he says it’s boring and he doesn’t care. And that made me wonder if introversion — which I still think is a sensory issue — is about being sensitive to people i.e., caring about their thoughts/feelings/histories. I’m not sure about this but I was thinking on it a lot.
3. Speaking of all this — I met 2.6 million people (or at least it felt like it) at the conference and seriously, nearly every single one was interesting if I got a minute to talk to them with one exception who shall remain nameless and faceless and better left unsaid. I wish I could walk around in other people’s shoes now and then because sometimes I can’t stand that I only get to be one person and live one life. I think this is why I like to read — I really wish I knew what it would be like to be other people. (This made me crazy when I was a kid; it felt so unfair to only get to be one person.)
4. I’ve also recently become annoyed with myself because it seems like I have to do everything the hard way. The thing about being an idealist — and I certainly am one — is that it means you constantly feel like you’re failing. Pretty much I feel like I’m failing at just about everything. I’m not a perfectionist, mind you. I don’t care about getting something absolutely right, it’s just that I’m easily disappointed in myself and (frankly) with other people. I’m not reasonable. When I was bitching to a sympathetic Brett about my lack of time to write tonight, I realized that in my head it’s all or nothing. Either I slog my way into a nervous breakdown or I give it all up and live a life of quiet desperation. I’ve got to learn how to modulate my expectations and I don’t know if I can do that.

I’m really really really really hoping that with the conference being over that I can get back to a livable schedule. It just seems like the kids have needed SO MUCH lately and also that I’ve been doing a lousy job of being there. I hope that it’s the conference and the unbelievable amount of work leading up to it but right now it all seems insurmountable.