Journal Sunday, 5 July 2009
Dear Bobbie,
It was such a wonderful surprise to be able to spend time with you last week. I have always admired you for your ability to go and do things that I would never have the courage to try. While Brent and I have discussed going on a mission in a few years, neither of us has even considered the option of going to Asia.
You are so very different from the Rob that I remember—who was still a teenager when I got home from my mission. Of course you are now a real grown up person who has worked and married and is a father. It feels like you consider me an OK person also—and I like that very much. Because I felt so comfortable with you, I couldn’t believe how defensive I felt when you asked me what I could write about on a blog. Since last week, your question has had me thinking over and over about the worth of what I have written. My only scholarly publication was 20 years ago—about the need to have students practice writing skills: an example of a classroom lesson that I had used to allow the students to apply the principles of subjective assertions supported by objective statements. Another article was about my change in priorities from wife and student to mother. Even the book that I’m writing with Megan is just a simple story about family. I have written thousands and thousands of pages of personal essays—journal-type observations organized around a single idea. They are not based on scholarly research, only peppered heavily with ideas and observations that I read from other authors. Usually I don’t even start with an original thought of my own: I write out the reaction that I have had in response to something I’ve heard or something that I’ve read or something that Brent and I have talked about. I am not a Chaucer or DaVinci or Copernicus or Aristotle or Goethe or Einstein. I sing the songs that others write. I read the words that others have written. I write about things that I have heard or experienced in other places. I remember that Mom used to complain to me that I could do lots of things well, but I had mastered none of them.
I look at Brent’s resume and there is nothing I’ve done that can compete with that. I quit before I finished my PhD. I missed 6 weeks of my mission recuperating from operations. I have not even worked enough hours in my 50 years to qualify for social security when I turn 65. I suppose that I demonstrate a fair amount of chutzpa in leaking my thoughts onto paper or into my computer and offering them for others to read. I am self-centered enough to believe that what I think and how I present it is significant and interesting enough that others will find it worth reading.
I have not accomplished much in my 50 years that would be worth putting on a resume. I have created teaching methodologies specific to the ways that Megan and Nathan learn so that they have been able to comprehend math, composition, and science. I have learned through my own experience how to propagate (the few plants that flourish in my yard) from cuttings. I was once called a Master Teacher. I was voted Teacher of the Year at a junior college where I taught. When I was 19, a fellow ballet student told me that she loved to watch me dance. My children tell me that I have done the right things at the right times to allow them to grow up and do the things that they want to do and become the people that they wanted to be. I can play the piano and speak Spanish and sing and swim and ride horses and sew and cross-stitch and take pictures and raise rabbits and cook what needs to be cooked. Mom was right. I do lots of things—but I have not mastered any of them.
So what do I have to write about?
I guess I just write about the fact that I am still learning and doing and discovering things. I’m not an accomplished writer, but sharing what I think, try, hope, read, and believe is satisfying somehow. I suppose that I put stuff on my blogs for the purely selfish reason that I like doing it.
What you think of me matters to me—and I have come to the conclusion that you would like me no matter what I could do or had accomplished. That is one of the things that I have liked best about this last week—I like knowing that others like me even if I am manic depressive, stubborn, narcoleptic, lazy, opinionated, and apt to do things that I know are not good for me. I do love you, though, Robbie. And even when I cannot keep up with where you work and where you live and how old Natasha and Benjamin are—I am interested in who you are and what you are thinking.
So. That’s what I have to put on my blogs. I hope that sometime you will look at them and find out about me—what I am doing, where I am going, how I am doing.
Much love always,
Carolyn
PS I will put some of the thoughts from this letter on my blog for tonight. So now you’ve read the kind of stuff that I blog about.
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