I’m mothering. I’m writing. I’m wifing. I’m planning a party. I’m recovering from dental surgery. I’m buying Christmas presents for tiny tots.

I’m struggling. I’m juggling. I’m stumbling. I’m fumbling.

This is my life. This is nothing new.

It’s odd. Sometimes, I’m able to tackle “it all” with relative ease. Sometimes though, this tending to my sides, my many sides, feels hard, more tricky.

This is one of those times. Those tricky times.

And so. I went into this Thursday morning without a blog post lined up. Unprepared. I knew, I hoped, something would come to me. And, thankfully, it has.

Hours.

Yes, this is a post about hours. How each of us spends the hours we have.

My good friend Lindsey of A Design So Vast wrote a wonderful post about hours earlier this week. I have read and re-read this post. I have not yet read through the many comments on the post, but plan to. This post, my post, is a follow-up to Lindsey’s, a continuation of the conversation. In my estimation, this is when blogging gets interesting, and fun. When we ask questions and others answer, when we commence conversations and others step up, and chime in.

In her post, Lindsey writes,

Every hour of our life is a choice, a trade-off between competing priorities and desires.  We are all given the same number of hours in a day.  What do you prioritize?  What do you care about?  Where are you spending your time?… Let’s all decide to no longer hide behind the excuse that we “don’t have time.”  The truer response would be “I don’t care enough to really protect the time.”  This may be harsh, but I think it’s also true.  Let’s take ownership of our choices rather than bemoaning their results.  Do you want time to meditate?  Time to go to yoga?  Time to spend reading with your children?  Well, something else has to go.  Unfortunately time, at least in the framework of a day or a week, is a zero sum game.  The ultimate one, perhaps.

One one level, I couldn’t agree more. I think it is up to us to make choices about how we spend the hours of our days. It is up to us to wrest some modicum of control over the flow of time in our own lives. It is up to us to fashion and re-fashion our own priorities and stick to them.

But.

Yes, but. It is not always this simple, is it? I don’t think so. And, also, I hope not. I think that time is one of the slipperiest beasts out there, something that will elude our grasp no matter our effort sometimes. I think that there are some moments in our lives when we simply do not have time for all of the things we want, and need, to do. I think these are the tricky times, often the defining times.

At the end of her thoughtful musing, Lindsey implores us all to step back and look at the “map of our hours.” Oh, how I love this imagery, and this instruction. She writes, “I believe that if you look carefully at the map of your hours over a week or a month, you will see a reflection of what it is in this life you prize most highly.  Do you like what you see?”

What if we look carefully at this map and we see love and effort and confusion? What if we see someone who is endlessly trying to shift the puzzle pieces of her hours into a tidy portrait that might not exist? What if we see someone who loves many things, and many people, and wants foolishly to do it all, and be it all, and equally and beautifully? What if we don’t necessarily like what we see, but we understand it, we respect it, we get it?

Thanks, Linds. For making me think. About my hours. About my life. xox

Thoughts on this? Do you agree that if we look at the map of our hours we can see what we prize most highly? Do you think how we spend our time, or struggle with our time, is sometimes as indicative of our confusions as it is of our convictions? Do you agree that, at best, blogging is a continuing conversation?

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Well, I hope so. Because today? Today I am writing a post completely inspired by my friend Kristen’s post on her blog yesterday. The title of her post? The Five Year Plan. Imitation indeed.

Five years ago. Five years ago, I was big and pregnant, awaiting the arrival of my first babe, my Big Girl. I remember the time well, feeling full of hope and fear, wondering what it would be like to meet her, and hold her, and love her. I remember feeling exhausted and elated, dizzy with anxiety and anticipation. I remember thinking, knowing, that life as I knew it was about to change profoundly. And it did.

Today. Today I am a mother. A mother of three little girls whom I love madly. Three little girls in whom I can glimpse myself and Husband, three little girls in whom I have already invested so much – so much heart, so much hope. Three little girls with blue eyes and big cheeks and good minds. Three little girls who are silly and serious and ours. Today I am also a writer, a real writer whatever that means. I published a book and I maintain a blog. I write because I need to, and because I want to. I write because that is how I process, and ponder, and progress. I write because it’s the way I commune with the world, with myself, with life’s questions. Questions that abound. Today I am also, and equally importantly, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a citizen. I am many things, many good and complicated things.

Five years from now. Who knows? It is hard for me to know who I will be, what my world will look like. I imagine it will be a world of growing girls and piling words and shaping stories. I imagine it will be a world of joy and struggle, of memory and ideas. I imagine I will be celebrating things I would never predict, and mourning things I would never think to lose. A lot can change in five years, no?

Yes, it can. And I am sure it will.

Imagine if you weren’t sure that you had the next five years to live. I know this is a depressing thought, but just stop for a moment and imagine it. Imagine if you were young, say, thirty-one, and this was the case.

Imagine that.

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The words below are pulled directly from Kristen’s post yesterday. I couldn’t say it better myself, so I won’t. Please read and do whatever you can to help.

Instead of leaving a comment on today’s post, please take a moment and visit Big Little Wolf to learn about the important work she is doing to help raise money for a life-saving kidney transplant for Ashley Quiñones, aka the Kidney Cutie, aka the sister of Kelly Miller of The Miller Mix.

Is there anything you can do to help Ashley dream of a Five Year Plan of her own?

Yesterday? It was not fun. It was not fun because I sat at my desk all day long trying to write and I wrote nothing. That’s not entirely true. I wrote a few words here and there. And then I deleted them. And then I opened new documents and took notes. And then I did some research. And then I tried to write again. Rinse and repeat. Yuck.

I’m trying to figure out why the day was such a bust. I know that some writing days are good and some less so, but yesterday was particularly disheartening. And I think it had something to do with pressure. You see, it’s been a few weeks since I submitted my first pages to my agent and I had hoped to submit weekly, to make swift progress on the writing of my second novel. And now. This weekend is my sister-in-law’s wedding (Yay!) and next week is Thanksgiving (Yay!) and I can just see the weeks flying by without getting work done. I don’t like this.

So. I had a little chat with myself, silent but stern, and determined that I will get my agent a substantial chunk of pages before heading to the wedding this weekend. And I also told myself that I would accomplish this over the course of yesterday and today so that I can spend the rest of the week primping and preparing for my role as bridesmaid and my little girls’ role as flower girls.

So, yes, pressure.

Well, it turns out that this kind of pressure doesn’t always work for me. I sat there yesterday staring out at a beautiful blue gray sky and I was stressed. I felt frozen and fearful. Honestly? I do not usually feel these things when I am writing. I love writing and usually have fun with it. But yesterday? Not fun.

So. Today is a new day. And I will be trying again. I will be sitting here at this desk, looking out, putting words to the page. I will try to relax about it, to have faith that the sentences and story will come, because I know they will. In time. Maybe not by the end of the day, but in time.

How do we writers discipline ourselves, keep ourselves writing and making progress, without stifling our own creativity with too much self-inflicted pressure? I have not a clue, but if you do, please share it with me. And all of us. Pretty please.

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Do you sometimes put undue pressure on yourself to perform? Do you do well with such self-inflicted pressure? Any sage words of encouragement for this temporarily down-trodden writer?

When I blog, I think about my girls. I think about them because I am writing about them, or because I am considering what effect my words might have on them. Now and in the future. It is very important to me that this blog is about me, my life, my questions and not really about them. My aim is to tell stories about them that are small and true and innocuous, stories that capture what it is to be an imperfect, but impassioned mother in this world.

But. Yes, there is a but. My girls are small now. But they are growing fast. Too fast. One day, they will understand better what I am up to. They will know that I am not just fiddling around on the computer, but that I am writing, and sometimes about them. They will notice the images of their backsides, and will say, Hey, that’s me. And maybe they will ask why.

And I will tell them that I am a writer. And that I like to tell stories, real and imagined. And I will explain that my very favorite real stories have to do with them, the joys and challenges they bring me. And maybe they will like this. Maybe they will understand it. Maybe they will not care.

Or maybe they won’t approve. Maybe they will ask me to stop. Stop posting pictures of them even though they are technically anonymous. Maybe they will ask me to stop. Stop writing words about their days and their ways. Maybe they will be uncomfortable with the fact that any portion of their lives, and our life together, is out there. Out here.

What will I do if this happens? If the creatures I love most in this world ask me to cease doing something that means a great deal to me? Will I honor their request and stop? Or will I keep writing and alter the content of my creations to include less about them? Or will I tell them that this is life, my life, that I must write about it, and that means them.

This is tricky, no? Just thinking ahead and aloud…

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How often do you think about the effects of what you do on your kids? If your kids asked you to stop writing about them, would you? To what extent should we tailor our lives and our professions to please and protect our little ones?

I am not ready to talk much about my second book, but I will tell you that it involves birds. And birdwatching. It also involves research. Much of it. And I am realizing, re-realizing, what fun research can be.

Last week, I had the distinct privilege of meeting with Paul Sweet who oversees the ornithology collection at the American Museum of Natural History. We talked birds and books. He showed me some specimens. And then.

Then he handed me a pair of heavy-duty binoculars and took me on an impromptu birdwatching walk through the park.

I had never done this before. And it was utterly magical.

We saw Hermit Thrushes, Yellow Bellied Sapsuckers, House Sparrows, Robins, White-Throated Sparrows, Towhees, Blue Jays, Red-Bellied Woodpeckers, Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, Golden-Crowned Kinglet, Morning Doves, Ruddy ducks and more.

And I saw something else. Something I see all the time. The park. Central Park.

I saw it through a new lens that day, literally, metaphorically. I did not see it as a place to take the kids, but as a patch of nature in the heart of a jungle. A locus of life.

A different kind of life.

I was amazed at how soothing it was. To walk, to feel the air, to look up and around, to listen. To spot tiny creatures in the grass, on branches, in the sky. The views? They were consistently stunning, both familiar and fresh. On this day, on this day of research and rejuvenation, I was struck with a profound awareness of the importance of certain things: Nature, setting, story, soul.

As we left the park, Paul pointed up and I followed his gaze. We stood there on the corner of 81st and Columbus and watched a vast pack of Turkey Vultures cascade through a blue fall sky, migrating. Those black dots along that expanse of cloud-striped blue? It was something special, I tell you.

And so. I wanted to share this with you. My foray into a new world, and maybe a new passion. I know that none of these pictures contain birds, at least visibly. But trust me. They were there.

Thank you, Paul. For opening my eyes to the new and the old. My story is already better because of this experience.

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How often do you escape your stressful life and immerse yourself in the natural world? Are you fond of birds? Do you enjoy research? Have you ever come at a familiar setting with a new eye, a new perspective? Do you feel calmed and refreshed when you are in nature, or a more natural place?