Catching Up Is Hard To Do, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Blog

Yeah, it's been busy here in J-land, and there has been nowhere near enough blogging. I find myself wanting to write about lots of things that have been going on; I think about clever ways to frame a blog entry and what I'll put in it; I fool myself into thinking that today will be the day where it slows down enough at work for me to be able to sneak some time away and dash out a quick blog entry. But then by the time that well deserved mental break time comes around, it's all I can do to just stare mindlessly at the internet, let alone write anything. And at night, after the kids are in bed, in my precious 90 minutes of adult time before my own bedtime? Puhleeze. The only reason I'm actually posting tonight is that it seems marginally less overwhelming than trying to clean the kitchen or do dishes, neither of which I got to earlier this evening and neither of which has the least bit of appeal right now whatsoever, despite the general sense of chaos that descends upon me whenever the clutter hits a certain level (which let me tell you, oh internet, it hits rather easily and regularly).

But regardless of whether or not anyone else misses my metaphor-strewn parenthetical ramblings, *I* miss them. It's a good outlet, and good writerly practice, and I need both right now. (I also need more leftover Easter candy, but I'm trying to resist. Help meeeeeee!) So I'm once again just I'm learning to just let go of that weird constipated compulsion to not blog unless and until I can do a full catch-up/journal-like accounting of what's been going on and what I've been meaning to blog about--just lay that burden down, mama (and back away slowly with my hands in the air so no one gets hurt). I'm trying to not be bowed down by what I thought I was going to write, and just write what I want to write here at the time I'm writing.

Is that enough meta-blogging for ya? Sheesh, it is for me. On to the actual blogging before it gets too late and I get too tired to get any further.

So Passover has come and gone, and for some reason it was hard for me to pay close attention to it this time around, so this year's observance was mostly Passover Lite (with, however, just as many cholesterol laden calories as always. Damn.) I managed the basics--had family over for a couple of Seders based on the Haggadah I put together some years ago (but didn't manage to update this year), prepared and ate the ritual foods (but failed pretty miserably with the NOT eating of chametz), thought some Deep Thoughts about big capital letter concepts like Freedom and Oppression--but didn't go any deeper or more complicated than that. I think some years I'm more in a reflective/attentive mode, and some years I just go through the motions.

But even during those years where I go through the motions, the acknowledgement and enactment of the ritual itself is still important. That regular re-enactment of whatever particular things I've chosen (or was given by my childhood) becomes the tentpole that holds up my life, keeps it from collapsing all around me. Or to put it another way, these ritual observances (no matter how half hearted they are in a particular instance) are the rhythm, the backbeat, the bass line of life's song, providing structure and order and a sense of predictability to what otherwise can feel at times like unbearable chaos and noise.

Hmmm, maybe the observance of rituals (whatever they may be) needs fallow time too, just like creative pursuits (or blogging!) do. Some years' observances are light so that the next year's can be heavy(er)…ebb and flow, ebb and flow.