So perfect it might not exist

Sometimes I have to catch myself from imagining my way out of existence. I have a tendency to build potential creations up in my head, and then, when I get around to the messy process of making them real, lament their many flaws and leave them cold and abandoned against the ravages of cyberspace, or the darkness of a drawer, or the accumulation of time, which settles like dust and hardens like a layer of earth's crust. What's in there, anyway?

It's unfathomable to think of abandoning one's children this way. But what happens to the many children of a wayward heart? It's always running about, falling in love with the world, impregnating the barren mind with a thousand swimming ideas, intent on connection, entry, gestation. When I became pregnant with my daughter, I gave up wine and coffee. I went for long walks, drank green smoothies, napped, and made an effort to silence unkind thoughts. I visited the doctor at scheduled intervals even though medical offices make me cringe. I read, I prayed, I rubbed holy water over my abdomen and retreated from places that seemed overly loud. But how well do I protect my budding projects: the stories, the songs, the poems that struggle for a fighting chance? How well does any woman, when she allows herself to put a thousand urgent demands ahead of .... well, what do you call it? A soul's cry? The children of a heart? I'm really not trying to get all Leonard Cohen here, but if if there is a sacred chord, and I think there is, in each of us, I want to hear it in a song before it dies inside of me.

So I'm going to forget the fact that I have had lofty ideas about what this could be and ignore that it doesn't look anything like what it is now. I'm going to let go of the urge to throw up my hands and shout, Forget it! Just because, when I finally had a few hours to myself I wound up spending them noodling around trying to get a fancy Wordpress blog up and running. Why? Because I have heard it was the best. Because I have heard it would allow me to maximize creative control. Because people I admire have Wordpress blogs. It would be perfect: I could add this page, and another, and another: music, poetry, inspirational witticisms, tea on fine china. Just as soon as I make a banner, edit calcified poetry, record some songs while the baby sleeps, and learn to use Adobe Illustrator for more than stick figures.

But, the weekend is ending, the sun is about to set, and tomorrow will be Monday with it's jarring demands, and a whole week's worth of reasons why it makes no sense to do this. Number one? It's not ready: the design in my head is so much more beautiful!

As the saying goes, Blah, blah, blah.

Right now this is just a blog. Maybe it'll be a genius. Maybe it will win awards. Maybe it will be picked last in gym class. More likely, it will find its home somewhere in the muddy middle: playing in dirt, playing soccer, playing spin-the-bottle, reading in secret, riding bikes, and feeling a bit confused when it comes to math.

Right now this is all I have to offer you, world. Okay. Here's to writing anyway. Here's to having a pulse, and a warm body, and a goofy smile. Here's to waking up in the morning, and going to bed every night, even though so much is still unfixed, and there is so much preparing left to do.

Perfectionism is a coward's game. Being a mother has taught me that I'm better than that. Here's to all of the illegitimate children of my imagination: I won't let you down. I'll be back soon.

Photo provided by zunardu on flickr, under a Creative Commons License.