What is this space?

I've done my best to make the authorship of this blog a collective "we," consistently. But you all -- we all -- know that it's Mama (third person) who writes here. Dada could, if he wanted, but he leaves the wordy documentation of our experiences to me (first person). This is true not only here, in this bloggy space, but in our marital rows and in our greeting cards and in polite company too, though Nora's great-grammy is really good at quieting me down, with a glance, so the man can speak. (Thank you, great grammy, for reminding me to shush up now and then.)

Posting has been erratic here, lately. I've found myself frozen for long periods, unsure what to say or how to say anything interesting, pithy, cadence-rich, or funny. Not because I don't find my life, and Nora, and parenthood, and the world, very interesting (and cadence-rich, and funny). But because who cares what I think, or how I say it?

Or worse yet, what if people do care, and they're still reading this thing, and they find what I write to be boring, or self-indulgent (yes, I know, it's a blog, it's nothing but self-indulgent), or offensive, even?

And besides, Nora is speaking for herself perfectly well, these days. It doesn't feel the same as it once did, speaking for her. I can't claim to know much about "Nora's World" anymore -- not really. She's her own subject, now. Who am I to say? (And, yes, it's a terrible name for a blog. I had just given birth. Blame the hormones. They melted a good portion of my brain for awhile, there.)

The past four years have been the only time in my life that I've felt silenced and censored. The ground beneath my feet chipped away by interpersonal drama, a heavily diseased workplace (or two), the exhaustion of motherhood-plus-career, the sharp realization that I can disappoint people even when I'm doing my best. That my best -- at a given moment -- might not be enough. That I can fall down on the job, that I cannot, in fact, carry everything on my shoulders and stay upright, forever. That I cannot, as one person, spread my fingers wide enough to keep every shard of a shattered vessel in place. A thousand pieces is too many to hold. They crumble through my fingers. Even my fingers. When did I become so convinced that I had the power to hold it all (ALL) together? And then I drill down to the real question: when did I become convinced that I had to?

There are hardly any photographs of me and Nora together. I wanted to post on mother's day, but couldn't find anything distinct to say. How does one write about oneself within the framework of a journal of one's child's life? The title "mother" draws boundaries around the page (or post). Here's my train of thought (as Nora would say, "Come along!"): "Mother" is not about ... the mother. It's a cultural identity that's enormously powerful and utterly reduced, at once. Even from the inside, I experience my mother-self as watchdog, recordkeeper, facilitator. It is a role enacted not exactly on the periphery, but on the periphery of center, or just above the sight-line. Motherhood is both visible and invisible. Motherhood is In-Between. What is in that space?

What defines the air underneath a bridge, the arc of water through which a paddle passes, the shadow in a brow's crease? I sometimes feel like vapor, omnipresent yet insubstantial. Easing the breath of those I love. Adrift.

Who is the author? She who gazes, versus the gazed-upon?

This, here, is a framed narrative. Thankfully, my subject is more cheery than Marlow, more deeply concerned with getting her flip-flops on the right feet than with the darkness of humanity. Still and all, I wonder about my responsibilities as a parent-author versus my voice and finding a place for it.

These paragraphs have languished in the draft folder for months, now. Is this the place to publish them? Will they shift the meaning of this space? Would that matter to anyone but me?

Well then. I'll hit the orange button. And move on, to post about Nora's first day of preschool and her awesome, hard work at holding it together. And mine. Mine, too.

Thank you for reading here.