Time contracts during the wee hours of the night. Slim minutes prance into a ravenous maw, whence they return not. The mind’s chronometer begins to wander as deft fingers fluff every carnation, deleaf every cremon, recut every spray rose.
Because, like, *Raskolnikov* might have whiled away his life simply staring at peeling yellow wallpaper — but some of us can’t justify such lollygagging. After all, the twelfth-grade “anchor feast” was mere hours away, but the event’s Crime-and-Punishment-themed floral cake was not going to arrange itself.
But, of course, I’m being glib. That fatalistic assessment of time — that the minutes disappear without a trace — applies to much more than simply this bizarre, yellowy floral event. After all, it’s not as though minutes disappear only in the dead of night, when flowers come out to play. In fact, reflecting on the last ten months, it’s difficult to identify a day in which the minutes didn’t disappear. They just never accommodate all the things I’d like to do.
Put simply: Time contracts during every part of life with four kids — and it takes a monumental effort to hold on to each moment before it’s gone.
But before I get any farther… let’s take a step back to address the digital elephant in the room.
Is this blog dead?
The answer is no. Or, at least, I *think* it’s no — because, for all my foibles and inconsistency, this blog still serves a purpose.
(And, yes. I will address the soft rebrand.)
Of course, the mechanics of this endeavor are now a bit different than I had originally intended. My erstwhile goal for this serial publication had been to hone my writing skills while recording the small, humorous-but-otherwise-forgettably-insignificant moments in the lives of my young children — preserving for them (and for others) the familial growing pains that are easily forgotten over time.
However, given my recent months-long hiatus — my second in two years — it’s manifestly apparent that I am failing in my original purpose. Caelestis, who is now a rambunctious ten-month-old, is featured as an actor in exactly one story. Such brushstrokes are more than just over-broad; they’re essentially nonexistent. You, the reader, have no idea that Caelestis — or “Cae-Cae”, or “Caeku” — is as stubborn as Borealis, as sweet as Aza, and [almost] as funny as Rhys.
Similarly, you might not have reason to give weight to that final comparison; as in, you might not know that Rhys is laugh-out-loud hilarious. While Borealis and Australis have been thoroughly described in various stories throughout the past half-decade-plus, Rhys has not received the same treatment. His humor shows up in a few stories — most notably, Vignettes and Brief Reflections — but it’s nevertheless easily overlooked.
In an ideal world, my thirdborn’s humor — and, indeed, *all* of my children’s qualities — would be woven throughout numerous stories, such that I’d need never explicitly mention them. After all, there’s truth to the storytelling maxim of “show, don’t tell”. Clearly, though, my character descriptions have most recently tended toward the converse.
Therefore, given that I’m *not* successfully recording the everyday moments of childhood… what significant purpose does this blog serve?
The answer: Hosting two specific stories — the two most equipped to effect change in the interior lives of their readers.
If you’re a long-time reader, you’ll know the first: my magnum opus, The Death of Occidentalis. I don’t know that I’ll ever write a more influential story — and, frankly, I can hardly imagine writing a more difficult one. Whereas it’s tempting to discuss miscarriage in a detached manner that holds unspoken thoughts at arms-length, I was burdened to write Occidentalis in a way that drags the reader into the story and through the gritty, complicated muck of emotions. Indeed, even all these years later, the most common feedback I get is, “I didn’t know it was like that.”
Well, yes — that’s the point. That’s why I wrote the story: So that you’d know that it *is* like that.
The second story is quite different — in scope, theme, and conclusion — but, in its own way, has been no less influential. That story is A Heavily Foreshadowed and Yet Completely Unexpected Twist, which is the [abridged] story of how Caelestis came to be in our family.
Certainly, that full-length tale isn’t for everyone — but it was never meant to be. Rather, it’s a long-form explanation for the people who say, “Tell me everything about embryo adoption — no, really: everything.” If they truly want to know *everything*, then it makes sense to at least begin with my fifteen-thousand-word primer.
[Note: And for the people who hear that we adopted Cae-Cae as a single-celled embryo and respond only, “Oh, uh, alright” — I know immediately that the full story is not going to interest them.]
Thus, for the sake of these two stories — or, really, for the sake of the souls who are changed by these stories — this blog serves a significant purpose. Just… not its original one.
However, I’m writing this long tangent to explain that — despite my own delinquency, and atop the inherent value of hosting those two special stories — I’d also like to get back to that other purpose, too: the original one, where I show (and don’t tell) you about Bo’s piano skills, or Aza’s watercolor practice, or Rhys’s puzzle insanity, or Cae’s social charms. I regret not holding space for at least some of those small stories — the ones that disappear all too easily.
In fact, as I worked on the “moral decadence cake” referenced above — the one for the school’s Crime and Punishment celebration — I decided that *this* would be my New Year’s resolution: to get back to writing more regularly. Twelve months, twelve stories. This post is the first… but hopefully not the last.
Will I be punctual? No, probably not always. But I aspire to at least be *intentional*… even in the midst of time that is always contracting.
Now, to discuss the soft rebrand.
This blog has been called “Trying My Breast” for a long time — over seven years. The origin of that name is detailed in an *old* post, appropriately titled How This Blog Got Its Name.
In short, the appellation was meant to reflect the startling complexity of young motherhood: earnestly striving, egregiously failing, awkwardly breastfeeding. I wanted the title to be a bit shocking, because… well, I felt like my life was a bit shocking, so maybe my blog should be, too.
But one baby led to two, and then three. Time passed, and my world eventually expanded beyond just my tiny circle of young motherhood friends. More people found this blog without my prompting — and, accordingly, without giving me a chance to explain the [now somewhat embarrassing] cheeky name. This was especially the case with the two significant stories discussed above, each of which spread far beyond my limited social circle. And while I was proud of the stories… I was no longer proud of their hosting website.
Beyond that, I was also no longer a young mother. As of this writing, Borealis is in second grade, and Aza is in kinder. Rhys attends preschool two full days a week, and Cae is starting to cruise along furniture. And me? Well, I’m approaching thirty-one years of age and ten years of marriage.
And you know what? “Trying My Breast” just doesn’t feel quite appropriate anymore.
Enter: “The Proverbs Thirty-Something Woman”. It’s aspirational, but not too aspirational. (Like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa — I didn’t specify *which* Proverbs woman! Don’t just assume ‘thirty-one’!”)
We’ll see how it goes. It’s a lot easier to simply change the website name than to shift everything over to a new domain… so I’m going to sit with this for a while and see if I like it.
And if I do? Well, then hopefully my husband is up for buying me a new domain name.
Since, after all, he should be happy that he’s married… to a Proverbs thirty-something woman. 😉