Title : Blogging Directions as a Retiree Adjusts. . .
link : Blogging Directions as a Retiree Adjusts. . .
Blogging Directions as a Retiree Adjusts. . .
Later next week, I expect I'll be sharing my impressions of Edinburgh with you -- what to blog about is always so much easier to decide when travelling. Right now, though, I'm feeling considerable ambivalence about what I'm doing here. I wonder if this has to do with having completed a first draft -- 240 pages! -- of a memoir of my life with and as a mother, a memoir instigated by my mother's death five years ago. So much emotional work went into that writing, and I'm pleased enough with having at least finished a draft. I'm not at all sure, however, that I want to do anything more with it; I am sure that I want at least a few months completely free of it.
In the meantime, I'm sorting out what I want to be doing here on the blog. I'm thinking about how much I've enjoyed the continuity of working on a longer-form piece, even though I've sometimes struggled to keep my pen scratching out a minimum 500 daily words. I have several other longer-form projects in mind, two that I've even opened files and deposited words into -- heck, I even have chapters!
But I'm feeling less urgency to write as a sort of replacement for my work identity. Because I'd have to admit that this need to define myself in the initial disorientation of retirement was another factor in drafting a memoir. I'm not sure whether that urgency has lessened because I did actually pin many words into a functional structure that a discerning reader or two found promising or if it's simply lessened because I've now been retired for three years. Or because, after two years in our new home in the city, I'm taking French classes and enjoying the occasional water-colour drop-in and signing up for Creative Mornings and art workshops. . .
If you've been reading this blog for any time at all, you'll know that I've never lacked for activities, that boredom isn't a problem here. Gardening, bread-making, knitting, reading, baby-sitting and spending time with the grandkids, nurturing friendships, maintaining fitness through yoga or strength training in the gym or running. . . Travel, of course. . .
And I think that perhaps drafting the memoir was also about imposing some discipline on that potpourri of interests and activities. An attempt to be more than just a "jill of all trades"; an effort to master one.
Honestly, I'm just thinking this out, right here, right now, on the screen that you'll be reading soon. What occurs to me, though, is that I've spent so much of my life deprecating this "too broad" array of interests and competencies, so much time deflecting praise by demurring that "yes, I'm pretty good at that, but compared to This or That or So-and-So, I'm not really . . . " Most of all, I've spent enough time earning external validation -- four sets of letters I never use after my name, for a start. And if I ever do edit my memoir into something worth publishing, I'd like to be sure I'm doing it for reasons that have nothing to do with bolstering identity. Ditto anything else I might want to write. (Never mind that I also think I make a better reader than a writer)
All of which thinking-out-loud is prelude to an explanation and apology and perhaps even a manifesto about what strikes me as considerable unevenness to this blog over the last few months. If I'm going to carry on posting here -- and I think I'd like to: despite some reservations about the commitment involved, I love the community here and I think that some of the discipline of regular writing as been good for me -- IF I'm going to keep posting, I think I'm going to keep being uneven. I will probably keep posting journal pages -- I like the way they let me do my writing off-screen, to capture a looser mood, a different rhythm, less linear, more personal and more physical.
I'd like to post more often, more photograph-focused posts, but I'm not sure how that would work given that I really enjoy Instagram and don't necessarily want to duplicate across platforms.
As well, I began this blog as an antidote, really, to life "in the academy" -- where a "life of the mind" often devalued the quotidian domestic. Lately, though, I suppose I fear that too much emphasis on that daily home life fortifies a social vision of the post-menopausal woman as Just Another Grandma. And happy as I am to be a Nana, I don't love contributing to reductive stereotyping. Nor do I love the way the quotidian domestic can take over, in the absence of larger goals and/or values. But I do want to surrender a bit, to "retire" from the need to define or to prove myself; I want to let myself try something new and then give it up if I want, or put it aside for a while, or continue to do something rather badly. Truly, one of the biggest joys of the sketching I do is that I have so little expectation that I be good at it -- it's such a release!
I'll be curious to read your thoughts and responses to this transition I'm feeling at this stage of retired life, of blogging life (11 years!) of parenting and grandparenting and being a Senior. . .
And because you've read this far, and your eyes would appreciate some lighter fare, here's a journal page from last week. I won't bother with transcription for this page, but let me know if you need help reading my writing -- and if you'd prefer that I transcribe any writing on any of the sketches I post.
In the meantime, I'm sorting out what I want to be doing here on the blog. I'm thinking about how much I've enjoyed the continuity of working on a longer-form piece, even though I've sometimes struggled to keep my pen scratching out a minimum 500 daily words. I have several other longer-form projects in mind, two that I've even opened files and deposited words into -- heck, I even have chapters!
But I'm feeling less urgency to write as a sort of replacement for my work identity. Because I'd have to admit that this need to define myself in the initial disorientation of retirement was another factor in drafting a memoir. I'm not sure whether that urgency has lessened because I did actually pin many words into a functional structure that a discerning reader or two found promising or if it's simply lessened because I've now been retired for three years. Or because, after two years in our new home in the city, I'm taking French classes and enjoying the occasional water-colour drop-in and signing up for Creative Mornings and art workshops. . .
If you've been reading this blog for any time at all, you'll know that I've never lacked for activities, that boredom isn't a problem here. Gardening, bread-making, knitting, reading, baby-sitting and spending time with the grandkids, nurturing friendships, maintaining fitness through yoga or strength training in the gym or running. . . Travel, of course. . .
And I think that perhaps drafting the memoir was also about imposing some discipline on that potpourri of interests and activities. An attempt to be more than just a "jill of all trades"; an effort to master one.
Honestly, I'm just thinking this out, right here, right now, on the screen that you'll be reading soon. What occurs to me, though, is that I've spent so much of my life deprecating this "too broad" array of interests and competencies, so much time deflecting praise by demurring that "yes, I'm pretty good at that, but compared to This or That or So-and-So, I'm not really . . . " Most of all, I've spent enough time earning external validation -- four sets of letters I never use after my name, for a start. And if I ever do edit my memoir into something worth publishing, I'd like to be sure I'm doing it for reasons that have nothing to do with bolstering identity. Ditto anything else I might want to write. (Never mind that I also think I make a better reader than a writer)
All of which thinking-out-loud is prelude to an explanation and apology and perhaps even a manifesto about what strikes me as considerable unevenness to this blog over the last few months. If I'm going to carry on posting here -- and I think I'd like to: despite some reservations about the commitment involved, I love the community here and I think that some of the discipline of regular writing as been good for me -- IF I'm going to keep posting, I think I'm going to keep being uneven. I will probably keep posting journal pages -- I like the way they let me do my writing off-screen, to capture a looser mood, a different rhythm, less linear, more personal and more physical.
I'd like to post more often, more photograph-focused posts, but I'm not sure how that would work given that I really enjoy Instagram and don't necessarily want to duplicate across platforms.
As well, I began this blog as an antidote, really, to life "in the academy" -- where a "life of the mind" often devalued the quotidian domestic. Lately, though, I suppose I fear that too much emphasis on that daily home life fortifies a social vision of the post-menopausal woman as Just Another Grandma. And happy as I am to be a Nana, I don't love contributing to reductive stereotyping. Nor do I love the way the quotidian domestic can take over, in the absence of larger goals and/or values. But I do want to surrender a bit, to "retire" from the need to define or to prove myself; I want to let myself try something new and then give it up if I want, or put it aside for a while, or continue to do something rather badly. Truly, one of the biggest joys of the sketching I do is that I have so little expectation that I be good at it -- it's such a release!
I'll be curious to read your thoughts and responses to this transition I'm feeling at this stage of retired life, of blogging life (11 years!) of parenting and grandparenting and being a Senior. . .
And because you've read this far, and your eyes would appreciate some lighter fare, here's a journal page from last week. I won't bother with transcription for this page, but let me know if you need help reading my writing -- and if you'd prefer that I transcribe any writing on any of the sketches I post.
Thus articles Blogging Directions as a Retiree Adjusts. . .
that is all articles Blogging Directions as a Retiree Adjusts. . . This time, hopefully can provide benefits to you all. Okay, see you in another article post.
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