The season has started.
In the past ten days, maybe less, I’ve gotten two job offers and two inquiries for interviews about my life as a blogger and working musician and mother. So even though I’m not really working much this fall (except for a one-night concert at an awesome club in NYC), things carry on apace! Guess I’d better get to writing...
The thing is, “my life as a working musician and mom (and blogger)” is tough right now. B (my husband and fellow opera singer) is out of the country on a gig and I’m solo parenting our very spirited (artistically temperamented!) child. I’ve been on the road with Henry alone many times in the past, but being home (not working) is different, not to mention the fact that he is very different at 15-months than he was at seven! Let’s just say that if “getting into things” is Henry’s job right now, he is at it like he’s up for a promotion. Keeps me on my toes!
I used to compose my blog posts in my head throughout the day, sitting down and regurgitating paragraphs of brilliant prose that had been stewing in my brain for several hours. But now by the end of the day I can barely remember where I left my computer let alone piece together a blog post from memory. After making and eating and cleaning up meals and snacks, reading dozens of books several times each, changing diapers, walking and running and playing inside and out (regardless of weather), cuddling, crying (both of us, often) and napping (also both of us), I am done. I barely have enough energy to log onto iChat and check in with B, who is lonely without us on the other side of the world. How am I supposed to write? What should I write? Many people have been asking me to start up again, but honestly...
I am not a “mommy blogger.” I will actually go out on a limb and say that I feel that genre has probably done more harm than good. Well, maybe equal harm and good. Blogs have become so slick and sleek as more and more people are making their living through them, but now reading a mom blog is akin to reading a fashion magazine: Do you feel better or worse about yourself when you read it? Do you look at the pictures and compare your (real) life to the (edited and Photoshopped) one on the screen? How’s that working out for you?
Nobody likes a complainer; I get that. But nobody likes a fake, either. So I’m going to try to find the balance. This blog used to help me work through things that were troubling me, issues I needed to focus on; it was a great place to brainstorm. Even now, after working on this rather short post, I feel a bit of mental clarity. I know it’s good for me. Maybe it will be good for someone else, too.
I still get the occasional email from a young singer who tells me that my blog has encouraged or inspired them. Even though I often feel discouraged and uninspired as I figure out this working mother thing, maybe writing again will help. You’ll have to live with a boring Blogspot template, though; the last thing I have time for these days is learning graphic design. So until I get some high-paying sponsors and hire a designer...
But this is me. You just get me. Real, unflashy, working hard to figure it out.
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