Super Chunk

I’ve been… you know, doing other stuff.  Thinking.  Reading a lot, as opposed to writing.  Writing other stuff for other people, though still for free.  Microblogging, both on Twitter and on Facebook.  Interning (so much more professional-sounding than student-teaching, which is what it actually is) and also, occasionally, working for money. Singing in a choir that is working the hardest music I’ve ever touched, struggling with that music.  Mothering, and getting better at it.
I have had some revelations recently:

• I do not like decorating.  Not even a little bit.  I like pretty stuff, and I certainly enjoy having a soothing environment to be in, but I don’t like (and am not especially good at) getting to that point.  This is minor, but it speaks to not making life harder than it has to be.  I need help with prettying-up, and that is GREAT.
• I have spent quite some time being “good enough,” after striving for near-perfection for many years.  I’m getting tired of “good enough,” and I think I would prefer to be throwing myself wholeheartedly at whatever I’m doing.  Excellence is worth it.  (FWIW, I believe that I have enough adult perspective to maintain balance most of the time.  Which is also worth it.)
• New to me yesterday: I am setting an example for my children!  (I know.  They’re almost six.  I tend toward obliviousness sometimes.)  Small things, sure; I knew I was showing them how to use a can opener and fold a washcloth.  But I realized yesterday that I can also show them excellence and balance and fortitude.  I can work through the wicked hard Mozart until I have it, rather than bailing on it because the rehearsals leave me exhausted and choir is a CHOICE.  Conversely, I can show them the easy way out if that’s what I really want them to know… but it isn’t.
• Inspiration is available to me in LOTS of places, if I keep my eyes and my mind open.  That’s quite a gift.

These things have implications in my personal life and my professional life, and also for my writing here.  I want to focus my writing more (though I’m still thinking about the direction of that focus), edit more thoroughly, and share more point of view.  I won’t elaborate; I hope show-don’t-tell does the job for me in the coming weeks.

Thanks for sticking around.  Please feel free to leave comments.

P.S. I established an account at friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/cburke.  If you were to follow me over there, you would get a feed of my postings here, on Twitter, FB, del.icio.us, and possibly also Tumblr.  Sort of a one-stop-shop.