I am An Other, In Another Place

My ten year old daughter wants to know what I write about when I sit down, open up my journal and scribble for three pages. "Are you just really detailed or do you have that much going on?" she asks. When I say both she looks at me with awe. Real awe, the kind she doesn't offer up when we're playing soccer and I smack her in the nose with a header, or when I groove in the kitchen to a beat that no one else can hear, or when I make my well-intentioned feeble attempts to create meals.

And I realize, for the first time, that my daughter wants me to have a life that is full and mysterious and beyond her. I also realize that I am leaving tomorrow for Tennessee for work, and she will have many an opportunity to seek out and tear through my journals. This is horrifying. Or is it? Would you really want to see your mother's journals? In any event, knowing that my daughter could see my words, all 36 years of journals ... made me realize, I might as well blog. So here I go.

I am writing a blog. My friend PT said I should. He said all I have to do is set myself to task to write in it every single day. And frankly, that shouldn't be so hard. Oh, and John said I should write a blog, too. But he never gets credit for saying the right thing. Duh. He's my husband.

I am writing from Toronto. From a house in shreds. From a life that is just beginning. Having a house renovated is a bit like living on the ocean in Maine: Every few hours, the view changes. No two tidal moments look the same in Maine. It's a staggering reality. But at least the tide comes back up every twelve hours. Whereas that wall? It's gone baby, gone.

This blog is a test, only a test. It's about our days and nights, and my increasing sense that I might, for the very first time in my four-decade life, belong. Because here, it's okay to be an OTHER.

I am an OTHER.