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I just noticed: all of August I only posted here once. I don't know that I can say very well why that is (well, aside from laziness). I've a list right here next to me of things to blog about. Who cares, really, if they all happened last month (or, uh, the month before that)?

I sat down last night and turned the TV on and realized I haven't sat down and turned the TV on in the evening in well over a week. It's been perpetual motion around here. Everyone's back in school, and suddenly we've got soccer practice twice a week. We had a terrific and lovely visit over Labor Day weekend with dear, dear friends; I found myself part of a project with a very short deadline; the washer of my dreams was delivered to my back porch and I've been washing everything in sight. Plenty to keep me busy and make me forget to take some time for myself, sit in front of the TV, read one of the books from the ever-growing stack on my bedside table, post to my blog.
I'm keen on keeping my feet planted firmly on the ground and I don't dream of being in another place, but I do crave solitude, quiet enough around me that I can listen to and feed the ideas that tickle me and time to linger in thought so deep I find it hard to be roused. The act of mothering is one that demands absolute presence; it's at odds with the way I usually want to be.

It's easy for me to shrug away from that kind of tension by making excuses as I complain, by pointing out that between the exuberance and frustrations of raising my children, there's no room for anything else. Harder is to face the lack of balance head-on; when I do, I start to feel like I am seeking out the very thing I'd like to avoid. I get crankier because thoughts won't stay put, I have to set down the book I'm reading mid-chapter, I snap at my children to give me just one minute.

Could it be that I should embrace the tension instead? Not push against it, but let it stretch me? See where that leads?