God Speaks in Compound Sentences

It's been more than one month since we've moved and we're still alive. The lights in our house run only on solar and summer's over--we've lost the sun.

I wake up and my eyes squint through the gray like a vole, like I live under the earth rather than on top of it. I want to write and I do not. It's as if I cannot see, and it's as if I can only feel my way through the day, through the dripping gray sky, through the dishes and the tugging of my children at my leg. I want to write about what this all feels like, but I do not.

This is the unedited product of a writing exercise from Priscilla Long's workshop "The Virtuoso Sentence" at the Skagit Valley Writer's League Conference last Saturday. Instructions: Take a subject you're working on and write about it using only compound sentences. That's two independent sentences joined by and, or, but. Three minutes. Go.

I found it quite difficult to flow within those constraints and felt quite pleased with myself. Until it was my turn to read it aloud and I got six words into my reading when she interrupted me. "That's a dependent clause," says Priscilla. Yes, "since we moved" is a dependent clause. (whaaaaa!?) Okay. Keep reading. Third sentence. Interrupted by, "That's a dependent clause." ("like"... "as if"). Okay, so, by definition, compound sentences can't have dependent clauses? Okay, so, apparently I use a lot of dependent clauses. Is that bad? Is it like having food hanging from your chin, like an extra appendage? Time to study craft - time to study sentence structures of the masters. Ach! I loved this 90 minute class of hers. I want more.

Here's a really cool fact: across all religions, god, in whatever form he/she/it/them manifests, speaks quite often in compound sentences. According to Priscilla this is because compound sentences carry a lot of authority. Who knew.

Half-started vs. Whole-Hearted: A Blog Theme Emerges, and I Fight It, Still

I don't want this blog to be a mommy blog. Really, I don't.

Half-started posts linger on my Drafts page. Blogg-ish thoughts lurk, un-inked, in my mind. Thoughts on yoga. On our transition to rural life in the Skagit Valley. On living with my feet in two worlds, urban Capitol Hill and rural Skagit. On excercise. On the TV show Hoarders. Yes, I said it -- lately I'm inspired to write about Hoarders. Ties into my fascination with thrifting and how our culture manages their "stuff." I have many thoughts On Writing. On Not writing. On ego. On clinging -- to a strong body, to a non-wrinkled skin surface, on clinging to ideas about what is and is not okay to write about on a blog.

And yet. Somehow. The blog posts I end up whipping out and clicking "Publish Post" -- end up being musings on my children, on motherhood, on moments in time as a mom.

And dang it, I end up sounding like someone who thinks parenting blogs are less-than. It's not that. It's that I think I'm less than, if I am presenting myself to the world and all I have to talk about is my kids. It's just so dang cliche.

And if you know me in the slightest, you'll know that I hate to be put in a box.

Box or no box, the fact remains -- my heart explodes for my children, my head aches with the growth that's in it for me. Year by year, I know -- the complexities will only magnify. So I'll probably keep writing about what it's like... And so, I just have to go with it.

I like to write about the sweetness of life. I like to write from my insides, the blood-thumping red rimmed pulsing insides of our selves. I can blather on about brilliant thoughts of mine. Insights. Theories. Observations. But little of it feels connected to my heart. So I let those thoughts linger on my Drafts dashboard. Try as I may to impress, to impose a representation of my different selves into this new-fangled way of showing my self to the world, the fact remains. I write from my core and my core right now revolves around tasting life as a mother.

Book Review on the Brain

I'm polishing my final draft of a book review on Third Culture Kids--The Children of International Educators by Dr. Ettie Zilber (2009, ___ Press), for publication in The Journal for the Advancement of International Education.

I think I just put myself to sleep, listing all those long titles - and I also have double reason: that 10 month old who only fell asleep at 4:30 am, after screaming and wriggling for hours last night. Here I am, sitting upright, with her strapped to my back in the Ergo, sleeping against me, since I refuse to deal with another night like that -- and it was looking that way after her brother accidentally woke her up around 9 pm.

Wow. I must be tired. Because that's a really long winded way of saying -- I'm slightly incoherent, but I've got "TCK" on the brain.

You know -- Third Culture Kids. Well, maybe you don't know. People like me, who grew up outside of their home culture. In another culture. That essentially creates a the experience of a third unique culture inside one small soul. Such as myself.

Reading the TCK book for review brought up all kinds of memories, insights, and "family of origin" aha! moments. You'd think this would all be old hat, how growing up in five different countries from 0 to 18 years old impacted me. But since moving to the U.S. for college at 18, it's an identity I've gone under cover about. After all, I look-sound-smell... American. I've got nuthin' to show for my TCK-ness. Just lots of passports stamps and an inability to join in conversations about favorite childhood TV shows.

So, while coming across hard and fast evidence of "TCK-ness" may seem momentarily interesting to you -- it means the world to me. Like the news that not since John Quincy Adams lived in France for a stint have we had a TCK in office - until good ole Barrack. Turns out Obama appointed a slew of TCKs for office, including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Heck, Geithner even attended the same high school I graduated from in Bangkok. And it's not that small of a world.

I haven't gotten the "aloof" accusation in a while, but I used to -- and it's a relief to read a quote about Obama like, "That cool manner of seeming 'above it all' is... a classic feature of the Third Culture Kid."

Or, "'I laughed when I heard a commentator call Barack exotic and elitist,' says Lois Bushong, an American who grew up in Costa Rica and now works a therapist for internationally mobile families. 'How exotic or elitist can it be to go home to visit your grandmother, even if she lives in Hawaii? She’s still your grandma. This TV guy seemed to forget that the world many see ‘exotic’ is simply home for TCKs.'"

I want to get back to web surfing and quit my exhausted blathering. One day I will put together a fabulous anthology of stories from us TCK folks--about growing up, about the dilemas we face raising our own families now (where? give our child a place to call home? or ramble, as we are used to?), about the every-day-ness of living our lives the only way we knew how--no "exotic" rose-colored-glasses crap.

For now, I just need one good night's sleep.