I read about other people’s lives and think their lives sound so interesting. But it’s also true that the author has made a story out of their lives: maybe it sounds more interesting than it really was, or actually the drama I am reading about was really hard to live through. I  don’t want to live through those lives.

My life is real: it’s messy. One minute I’m talking about how switching to more work hours is hard, that I can’t fit in all the human chores. The next minute I’m crying about my baby growing up. There’s nothing especially beautiful about it, but maybe rendered in a book it would sound exciting.

I mean, it is mercurial: the changing nature of what I talk about: from housework and groceries to my oldest child turning 17. But really, it’s utterly ordinary.

Which makes me think about how much I enjoy turning things into story: why not make beauty out of a messy life?

That’s why I wrote 5 or so drafts of a memoir. But it’s so messy back there. Now I just want to write poetry and figure out how to see San Diego and the San Juan Islands and read more good books. Maybe because living life feels plenty messy right now. Not necessarily hard: which was what the memoir was about: the hard stuff.

No wonder I’ve set it down for now in favor of poetry. And working new jobs. And being as in the now as possible for the last remnants of a certain person’s childhood. Right now, said person is downstairs with 4 (5?) friends. Their curls of laughter play with the music and bits of their conversation. The good stuff, even if I’m completely not in the room and listening to the edges as I sit here on a Sunday evening.

That’s what I’m thinking about right now.