Changing focus

I realized that since we got back from our trip, I have been less inclined to post. Somehow, it doesn't seem worth my while to write, or yours to read. I think I fugured out why.

While we were in California, we visited my mother. Mother is in assisted living, and we have hired someone to screen her mail. She had managed to get on EVERYONE's "gimme" list. Every day, she received four or five solicitations for contributions to various charitable causes. Some of them were more charitable to their directors than others. She felt overwhelmed. She couldn't decide which organizations to give money to. She saved much of the mail, inundating her office space. She gave sums to suspect organizations. It was too much for her.

We put an end to the deluge of begging mail, but she complained that it was hardly worth opening her mailbox anymore.

So, I started writing her. I remembered how, all my life when I lived with my parents, my mother would receive a weekly letter from her sister who lived in North Carolina. Aunt Margaret would send a single-spaced, type-written letter (usually typed on both sides of the paper) EVERY WEEK!

I've been trying to do the same. Every Sunday I sit down and recount my week for her. I try to throw in something of local interest, or some cultural reference or something more than a dry recitation of activities. Acautally, it's fun. I enjoy remmebering the highs and lows of my week. When something happens, I'll think, "I have to remember to write that to Mother"

But if there is a downside, it is that I feel less comuplsion to write here. I AM sharing myself, with my mother on a weekly basis.

So, why am I writing this now? I called her today and told her I would not write to her this week. I'm going to visit her in person instead. She forgave me for not writing.

I got over by blog-block

I have an outlet for expressing the mundane in my life now. It's called Mom.