Nearly two years ago, I posted this, about discovering Ali Smith, being smitten, and my quest to get my hands on her seemingly elusive book.  The mystery was solved when she responded directly to me, letting me know that I couldn’t find it because it hadn’t yet been published.  She was close, very close, to finding a publisher.  Her photographs were so stunning, felt so important, that I just assumed the publication was in progress, the details of which can be drawn-out over years, and I’ve been here, twiddling my thumbs, waiting.

Turns out her publisher folded, along with the funds she had put towards the book.  Today I made my first foray onto Kickstarter to contribute to get this book, (now twelve years in the making), published at last.  I knew about Kickstarter, mostly via swissmiss, and found it both mystifying and heartening that people were helping other people get projects off the ground, strangers, simply because they believed in the work or product.  It is, in reality, not an investment, but a gift.  The “return” on your “investment”, in this case, is that something you believe in, that has meaning to you, will exist in the world.  There was an interesting article about this in the New York Times (click here to read).

I am so not into trying to separate people and their money. You will never find me on any fund-raising committees. Can’t do it.  So consider this a Public Service Announcement.  Her Kickstarter campaign ends tonight.

My theory on the explosion of female-centric, often mom-centric blogging is there are many women out there who feel isolated or marginalized or maybe just inconsequential.  Blogging offers a way of trying out one’s voice, staking a claim on a little piece of the world, saying “I am here”.  It can be good writing, it can be bad, mostly it is unedited.  Everyone’s writing can benefit from someone else’s red pen, but personal blogging is not that.  It isn’t literature and it can be the worst form of self-publishing.  There are the pitfalls of over-sharing and feeling vulnerable afterwards. But for many of us, it’s a way of existing outside our noisy minds, putting our flag in the ground, saying: this here, this is mine.

I keep getting notices that my domain registration is going to expire Thursday. As has been my way, I’ve been agonizing about what to do.  This is a wonderful form of mental masturbation.  Wracking my brain trying to figure it out, to come up with the “right” answer can be a mind-consuming exercise of deciding nothing.

Yoda’s words came to mind: “Do or do not”.

All while I’m wrestling with whether to do or do not, the gall of a nobody like me writing a blog, an email dings in my inbox Sunday afternoon.  There is an opportunity for me to teach a writing class for a small group of at-risk teens.  Writing. Social Work. Teenagers. The belief that writing can save your life.

I’m following the signs.

(image found here)

August 30, Opening presents in my bed in the morning, as is our family’s tradition. (August is a busy month around here).

Thank you for joining me for August Break 2012! I’ll be back after I’ve gotten everyone off to school!

Southhampton Beach, August 24, 9pm

Surf, sand, sunset, s’mores.

Thirteen years old. My teenager.

Everyone says it, and that’s because it’s true: Wasn’t it just yesterday?

That I lumbered through New York City in August, walking, eating, nesting, waiting for him. The labor that went almost too fast, like a train off the rails. The surprise of him: a real, live baby, a stranger, whose life depended on mine.

And then I didn’t get dressed for a couple days. Those days that run into night and back to daylight again. Nurse, rock, change, repeat.

Going out the first time felt momentous. Leaving behind wrinkled sheets smelling of milk and Dreft, time standing still, the sun felt blazing on my bare shoulders. I carried him into Riverside Park, trussed his dangling limbs, our shirts wet where he pressed into me. My stitches were still raw and sore.

Crossing the busy city street with my arms wrapped around him, taking my son into the bright world, I have never felt so brave.

Rainy day on the ferry.

Not to get all, like, *deep* on you, but doesn’t this picture just feel like the end of summer?

Endings and beginnings, always. I could just ride the energy of this time in between forever. So much to do, so much to look forward to. New and unknown.

My husband tells me I like “new” things. He’s wrong.

I love them.

This picture isn’t even from August, so I’m kind of cheating. In July, I took my family to Family Nature Camp in Bar Harbor, Maine, a stone’s throw from Acadia National Park.

Besides all that we learned about tide pools, lobster ecology, beaver dams, the magnetized granite unique to this region, we took some great hikes.

Our guide told us about the Beehive trail–a very challenging rock scrambler with man-made metal handles fused into vertical rock to pull yourself up. . . and up. . . and up. The ledges are narrow, the drops, steep.

I led my ten-year-old, Ben, advising him just don’t look down, keep going forward, reminding him to take his time. Once I decided that we would be doing this, the work was in quieting the persistent hum that runs through my days, of keep them safe keep them safe. For just this one afternoon, I tried out this one: trust trust trust.

We passed people on their way down, shaking their heads, telling us that mentally, they just couldn’t do it. Physically, of course they could, but the fear, of heights, of falling, made them turn back.

All along, in my mind, batting around the question of whether this was one of my worst parenting moments, (putting my child in a risky situation), or one of my best (giving him an opportunity to accomplish something very difficult). Still not sure. We never really know for certain, do we?

This picture is of Ben making it to the top.

This week Osa is our houseguest. My friend, Karen, is off fetching her sons at camp, and we are playing house with Osa. I knew her from the countless sweltering summer evenings Karen and I spent watching our sons play baseball from our folding spectator chairs, discussing over-scheduled kids, over-invested sports dads, raising boys, and what we’d been writing. Osa sat with us, patiently. She’s one of those fiercely intelligent, mild mannered, soulful dogs. It’s all in those amber eyes.

Remember Nightswimming from last year’s August Break?

From the screened-in porch, watching Ben and cousin Gracey trying to catch butterflies with nets in the distance.