Naissance

Yesterday was my blog birthday. This blog is one year old.

I know that most people like to call it an anniversary, or a blogiversary, but I really prefer to think of it as a sort of birth. One without the pain and the drugs and the torn-up hoo-hah, but a birthday nonetheless. One year ago yesterday, I created something. I took part of myself and made something of it and thrust it out into the world. I gave something birth. That thing was, is, this blog.

I'm not going to get all cheesy and call it my baby. It's not my baby. This is my baby:

But it is possible to give birth to other things - things, works, states of being - things that are not babies, not even, colloquially, 'our babies' (such a mother, so literal - only a baby can be one's 'baby'), things that are nonetheless much beloved, much treasured, the products of much work.

This is what I said, one year ago. This was the first yell, the first red-cheeked holler that announced new life: welcome to the first day of the rest of my life.

My life.

I was referring, specifically, to the day of WonderBaby's birth, the day that I became a mother, the day that my universe changed, the day that I changed, forever. But I might have been referring to the day at hand, the day of the birth of the blog. Because that day was also a day of transformation, a day of fundamental change. It was the day that I decided to tell my stories. It was the day that I became (again? for once and for all?) a writer, because it was the day that I leapt - blindly, happily - into my love of writing and stayed there. Swam there, splashed there, frolicked there. I'm still there - sometimes frolicking, sometimes dog-paddling, sometimes floating on my back, resting tired arms, but still - still - there. (Waterbabywriterbaby. Writerbaby? Uck. Writer, baby.)

What I gave birth to: a new (a rediscovered?) part of myself, a new (found?) identity. 'Her Bad Mother' (the name came late, as names often do) is me - me-the-mother, of course, but more fundamentally, me-the-writer.

I'm thinking about that a lot these days, about this transformation, this (re?)birth. How do I nurture this work, this thing, this me? I don't quite know how to mother this creation. I'm learning as I go. I'm making mistakes, I think, but I don't mind my errors. I'm learning. I don't know how this work will turn out, but for the moment, that doesn't matter. The joy is in the doing.

And, of course, always, the inspiration... there is joy, so much joy, in celebrating the inspiration, that which gave (who did give) this breath...

Then.

Now.

I don't know where this goes. It doesn't matter. It can only be good.

Cheers, and thanks for sharing this year with me.