Writing has been difficult lately. I feel like I’m chasing soap bubbles, and the moment I grasp a nugget, a train of thought, an approach, an angle, it disappears into nothingness before I can pin it to paper.
It’s so very much like my daughter chasing these bubbles around the park – yet so different.
First, I’m not having as much fun (I need to do something about that).
Second, my failure to grasp these bubbles, and manipulate them into a cohesive thesis, has consequenses.
Just a few more days, I can count it in hours now, till this semester is done. The last paper and final are friday; then I can exhale.
People ask me what my blog is about, and every time I pause. I know I’m supposed to have an elevator speech prepared, I guess it’s time I start thinking about that.
This blog has been through so many iterations. I started the first CoffeeJitters blog on LiveJournal back in 2001. It’s hard to believe it’s been more than ten years since that first blog post. A lot has changed over that decade.
CoffeeJitters has been a single girl making her way in the world blog, a wedding blog, an infertility blog, a photography blog, a quitting my job and going back to school full time blog, a wow! I’m pregnant! blog, a mommy blog, a cancer blog, and a relearning how to dream after cancer blog.
Mostly, it’s a love letter to my daughter and husband, and an ongoing autobiography. It is my story, and my practice honing my voice. It is my chance to be heard.
I think in a way, that’s what a lot of us bloggers are doing. I keep picturing all the bloggers of the world at their computers furiously typing away in a clackity-clack version of the Whos that Horton heard, yelling at the top of their lungs, “We Exist!”
Blogging allows us to make our mark on the world. To show that we exist. To have a voice and have it heard. To contribute to the ongoing story of the human race.
My studies recently have centered a great deal around women’s history throughout the world, and the difficulty involved in truly understanding what a woman’s life was like. Mens stories were recorded, by men. Women’s stories… not so much.
I look at blogging in comparison to that and I think: what a gift we are leaving for future generations. Is there any comparable resource in history to the wide range of women’s stories now available? Sure, there’s a good deal of exaggeration. That also exists in our history books. But there is so much more variety of stories and lifestyles represented. I’m proud to be a part of this movement. I’m so happy that future generations will have such a wealth of information about their ancestors – us. (On second thought, maybe I’d better go clean up a few of my posts)
I was selected for this campaign by Clever Girls Collective. This post is sponsored by Members Unite.
“The doggie makes him feel better?”
“That’s right, they give doggies to soldiers who are hurt, and the doggies help them to get stronger, be happy, and feel loved.”
“I like that.”
Gem has her hand in most of my blog posts in one way or another. When I was hired to review the Members Unite program, where users vote on a collectively funded project each month, I pulled her right up beside me to help out with the review.
Each month, nine philanthropic projects are highlighted. Members read up on the details, and vote on which project their membership dollars, in our case $5 a month, would fund.
Gem and I did not agree on many of these projects. She was much more taken with the projects that focused on making people happy (not surprising for a two-year-old), while I was more interested in the projects that help with nutrition and education. But we both easily agreed on the dogs for wounded veterans.
I love the fact that these little projects are funding something specific: 30 front doors for habitat for humanity, or tutors for 30 homeless children for one year, or planting 5,000 trees in Brazil, just to name a few. This takes giving to a different level, and helps me feel more involved in what my donation is doing. My measly $5 is not getting lost in a giant fund to be used for whatever, it is to go to this specific project. There’s a shift that takes place in my brain around that. I don’t have a lot of money to give, but I can give $5, and in this case, I know what the $5 will go towards, and I know it will make a difference.
I’m going to keep watching this program, to see how it plays out for a couple months, and how the voting process proceeds, but so far I’m impressed. Each week more information will be provided about the projects that survive the previous weeks cut. So as you go along through the month, you learn more, and become more involved with the projects for which you are voting.
“One person giving $20 is a drop in the ocean. One thousand people giving $20 brings clean water to a village for a lifetime”
Additionally, I love the fact that this project brings to my attention 9 different projects that amazing people are working on each month. That’s a lot of awesome to introduce into our lives. It’s good to see other people do good. It’s good to get exposure to a wide array of possibilities. It’s good to have this kind of inspiration for our own future projects. And it’s good to have a chance to deal in to these projects, even on the $5 level. I want my daughter to see that her opportunities for making a difference in the world are limitless. She will be joining me in voting on Members Unite projects each month.
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For more information: The site includes a useful FAQ that outlines the transparency of their financials, the vetting process for projects, membership information (yes you can cancel with 30 days notice, no long term commitment required) and a number of other relevant and useful pieces of information. It’s well worth the read.
UPDATE: For a limited time, Members Unite is offering my community a 50% off discount on the annual membership fee of $25! Use code “WELOVEMOMS” when you sign up!
We spent the evening walking down Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, The Big Easy. It’s Friday night, and I’m told much tamer than the partying a few nights earlier on Fat Tuesday.
My friends and I stand at the corner waiting for the light to change so we can cross the street, while revelers around us brazenly jaywalk – behavior that seems foreign to this group of girls from Seattle.
We stop for drinks at Howl At the Moon, and when they are delivered in 36 ounce plastic cups, the server explains that the 3 for one special means everyone is automatically upgraded to a triple, and the cups are plastic so we can take them out in the street.
We look outside: Everyone does carry their drinks with them in the street.
Don’t worry, we adjusted. It wasn’t long before we were jaywalking while carrying open containers. Talk about multitasking.
Beads hang from balconies, street lights, stop signs, trees, public art, and anything else that will sit still long enough to be draped with the twinkling strands in all colors of bling.
A sprinkling of rain and a sturdy breeze lends more sparkle and movement to a street that is already teeming with life; humans, pigeons, palm trees, flowers, moss, mules, dogs can all be seen in a single glance.
The next block we walk through is closed to traffic, and pedestrians fill the area between the buildings as they laugh, dance, and wander amongst the street performers and live music wafting from the insides of bars and restaurants, music so rich and textured it seems to hold a physical presence in the space as well.
Bright lights and dark corners, high contrast colors, bricks and stucco, trolleys and mule drawn carriages, trees and bling,
and ornate balconies populated with blow up dolls
conspire to create an environment that is, to me, both fun and foreign.
In the cold, dark, fear of 3 a.m., when the cancer patient is most alone, I found ToddlerPlanet, a blog written by cancer fighting princess warrior, awesome mommy, and astrophysicist, Susan Niebur (also known as @whymommy).
Days after my diagnosis, before I learned to reign in my imagination and to view Dr.Google for what it is, I found Susan’s blog. I read for hours: post after post, page after page. It seemed she was speaking directly to me, addressing my personal concerns about life, death, love, cancer, and most important to me at that moment, the well being of my child. No sensationalism, just an honest look at life and parenting as impacted by cancer.
It would be difficult and frustrating, and at times, extremely painful, she seemed to say, but my days would still be full of love and joy, and I can still be an awesome mom, and my child can still be happy. I read those pages through tears; I was so relieved and hopeful. In the two years since then, we formed an internet friendship, tweeting and commenting on each other’s blog posts. The internet has made possible friendships between people who have never met.
Who will never meet.
Today I read her blog again through tears. Susan passed away today. She touched so many lives, her husband and little boys, her friends and family, the science community, the blogging community, the cancer and health advocacy community… and me, a girl at a computer Seattle, whose life was blessed by knowing her, even though we never met.
Is it just me, or does the moon seem to be a bit bigger and brighter tonight? I’m going to think of it as Susan’s moon.
Thank you, Susan, for the love and hope and strength you shared with all of us. Godspeed.
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