confession tuesday

I’ve been feeling guilty about not participating more on my favorite poetry community site, Read Write Poem. Over the past couple months I’ve made a few attempts to get more involved, to read the posts of other poets and comment.

But.

It seems like it’s all or nothing with me. Either I spend way too much time there, or not enough time to feel like it’s fair to post my own work, since I’m not contributing enough to others. I’m having a hard time finding the balance. And I’m trying to be realistic about my own limitations, to allow myself to be okay with the idea that maybe now is just not the time for me to be involved in an online community, when so much of my time needs to go to my children and their education.

Now that I’ve successfully started a real-life poetry group (with three other members!!), and am working harder to get out of my shell and get to know some of the great local poets at the open mic nights down in Yakima, as well as generally feeling confident and motivated with my revision and publication process, maybe it’s time to stop putting pressure on myself to be involved in the virtual poetry community. To put down the mouse and step away. To know when to scale back. To give up on the dream nightmare of trying to “do it all.” To do just enough, not too much.

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Closely linked to my search for creative balance is my new-found practice of yoga. I started back at the beginning of January, doing 2-3 sessions a week. I’ve worked my way up to 4-5 times a week now.

Generally I practice early in the morning before my husband and kids get up, but over the past few weeks, my husband has been getting up and doing yoga with me.

As I read more about the philosophy behind yoga, I feel like it’s a very healthy thing for me to be doing right now, not just physically and spiritually, but also creatively. I have a hard time observing. Just sitting and being with the present. Listening. Yoga is helping me with that, and I feel like it’s already had a positive effect on my writing process.

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I think I might be pregnant again, and I’m scared. Not of being pregnant, but of getting too excited, too invested, of obsessing about it, loving too much too soon–and then the pain that will inevitably follow if I miscarry again. I’m a few days late, and I’m forcing myself to wait another week before taking a test, just to make myself take it easy.