Note From The Editor

Change. It happens to us all whether we yearn for it or fight it every step of the way. We see it in our reflection in the mirror, in the colour of the leaves on the trees and the number of outgrown clothes in our children's wardrobes. Changes happen in our lives everyday, many progressing so slowly that they go by unnoticed and others so monumental that things will never be the same again.

How has change affected your life?

Has it brought with it wisdom and clarity or has the passage of time only brought a sense of confusion and a feeling of getting old? Do you feel lost in the sea of new music that only sounds like noise to you now? Confused by the tiny silver gadgets that do things you didn't even know you needed doing? Or do you ride the wave of change reveling in all that is new and different, refusing to let it make you grow old and rising to each new challenge it brings?

Tell us your story of change.


Our Editor, The Farmers Wife can be found at her blog Running In Wellies where she talks about her new life on foreign shores, embarrassing tales of new and old and other miscellaneous nonsense.

Romantic Illusions

by Emma Kaufmann
http://www.mommyhasaheadache.blogspot.com/

I sometimes feel like marriage as it is today is some
sort of anachronism from the past. It seems like
feminism should have changed it all for the better,
and it did change it, certainly, but whether it was
for the better, I'm not so sure. Firstly, sexual
pleasure got all mixed up into it. Now women are
expected to demand sexual pleasure in marriage and if,
after working at the sex by reading countless articles
on 'How to Spice up Your Marriage,' things are still
rather poor on the bedroom front, then one should
simply cut one's losses and head for the door.


It is a well documented fact that sexual disgust for women in marriage was
once part and parcel of the marriage contract, and a very useful one at that.
In the eighteenth century, when marriages were still made as business
arrangements, it was necessary, nay even desirable, to make your wife think
sex was an unbearable chore so that she would never even consider leaving.
Since many women probably didn't have any lovers before marriage and
consequently had no point of comparison, once they got married and found the
marital sex to be awful (as I would guess it usually was, seeing as people did
not choose each other on the basis of sexual attraction), sex became linked in the
wife's mind with disgust, and she didn't crave physical relations with someone
else outside of the marriage.

Women throw up their hands at how in the old days, men and women made
marriages based on pragmatic choices that had little or nothing to do with love.
Apart from the fact that women no longer become the legal property of men
when they marry, however, we still choose partners in the same old ways. Most
people marry others of a similar or higher social status, calculating their long
term earning and investment potential. Women and men also usually marry
partners of equal physical attractiveness. Physical attractiveness and good
education/job are the reasons people choose their partners and yet, who would
admit it? It is always dressed up as, 'I fell in love with him', or 'our eyes met
across a crowded room'.

But falling in love is so natural, you may reply, it's as natural as breathing.
But is it? Is it really? Is there any evidence that people en masse 'fell in love'
with each other in the past? Some did, but passionate love tended to be
an unstabling influence on society and was not encouraged. Happy love
did not even enter the vocabulary of romance until the seventeeth century,
and many historians believe that romantic love is a learned behavior that
became fashionable in the late eighteenth century, along with the new
fashion for reading novels - the novel itself being a radical cultural form that
explored 'individuality' for the first time.

For the Greeks, passionate love was a disordering and thus preferably
brief experience, in opposition to the goal of marriage, which was to
create a well-balanced household. Marriage was certainly never the journey
towards self-fulfillment that it has become today.

The mixing of romantic love with marriage is, I would say, the fundamental
problem in today's marriages. On the one hand, you are told to ‘work’ at
your marriage and to suppress desires to have affairs, yet, on the other hand,
you are told that falling in love is the greatest thing that can happen between
two people. And once the buzz is gone from your relationship, what to do?
No wonder, I think, that so many people are having affairs and the divorce
rate is so high. There seems to be a fundamental flaw in the concept of
marriage today. It is meant to give so much to people, yet gives so little.
And with so many now playing away, or, more commonly, reaching
for the Prozac, I wonder if this is progress? What do you say?

Turn and Face the Strange

by Lara David of Life: The Ongoing Education

I was 19, and he was 20. We were dating casually for the summer while I was home from college – having fun, but nothing serious. But he had known me for years, from before the death of my father. And so one night, in a particularly pensive mood, I asked him: “Have I changed very much since then?”

He thought quietly for a moment. “You don’t smile as much now,” he said. “But when you do, it’s real.” I asked what he meant, and he said, “You used to be happy all the time, but it was always superficial. Now, when you’re happy, it’s more genuine.” He shrugged, not sure how else to explain. “It’s more real.”

I was surprised by the depth of his attention, to have noticed something so small. And I was even more surprised to realize that it was something that I actually hadn’t noticed. How could this boy, who knew so little of me in most ways, see that when I couldn’t?

I’ve come to realize, in the years since that night, that the most important changes in my life are the ones that happen slowly over time, day by day, until one day I’m a new person, with new dreams and new problems, with new hopes and new fears. I see myself every morning, in the bathroom mirror spotted with toothpaste, and I miss the tiny differences that happen every night. I miss all the small things that add up to a big change.

I wonder, in my more whimsical moments, if this is what caterpillars feel. For months they wait in their cocoons, changing moment by moment, without notice. And in the end, they emerge, a beautiful butterfly, with bright colors and patterns and powerful wings. And the world gasps with wonder, to see such splendor, while the caterpillar merely cocks his head and tries to understand what’s happened.

Recently I looked at myself closely for the first time and was surprised to find a stranger. When did I become this woman I see, and where is the girl that I was? I am stronger than I used to be – tried by fire with freedom on the other side. I am beautiful now, in a way I could never be before, if only for my own acceptance of it. I live more in the world and less in myself, and I see other things and other people in a way I never could before.

And I find that the greatest surprise of all is that, just as it did once before, my smile has again settled into something deeper, softer, and more real.











Lara David is a twenty-something California girl, writing and photographing her way through life – and its changes! – one day at a time. Depending on the hat of the day, she is a preschool teacher, a dancer, a nanny, an artist, and a drama queen. She loves new friends, so follow along with the ups and downs of her life lessons at Life: The Ongoing Education. You never know – if you stick around long enough, you just might learn something.

Turn and Face the Stranger

by Desert Songbird of The Ice Box.

She married her soul mate February 28, 1985.

She cried over the body of mother March 3, 1985.

She pried the gun out of her soul mate’s hand September 1985.

Her soul mate walked out on her December 12, 1986.

She clasped the hand of her father December 25, 1986 as he lay dying.

Too many changes, too little time. Defeated. Closed and withdrawn, she retreated.

Slowly, ever so slowly she emerged from her cocoon, poking her head out occasionally to test the waters. Timid. Fearful.

A few years passed. She met a nice man - a steady, smart, and funny companion. They married, settled down, had kids. Cute, funny, smart kids. Healthy kids. Things stayed the same for a long while. She grew content.

July 13, 2005, they told her it would kill her – an incurable disease. “Take your medicine and hope for the best.”

She smiled wryly. “Just another change,” she thought.

No cocoon for her this time. No hiding, no fear. Look the monster in the face.

And laugh.


Desert Songbird lives in the American Southwest desert with her steady, smart, and funny husband and her two cute, funny, smart kids. Life’s flavors, changes, and challenges are pondered at The Ice Box.

Ready?

By Michele Wilcox from Sparks and Butterflies


Change is difficult. Almost everyone knows that, but it doesn’t make it any easier when it happens.

I’ve been through a lot of changes of the past couple of years… I won’t bore you with my sob story, but I’ve certainly become very familiar with the word and its consequences. And yet – I know one of my biggest experiences with the dreaded word is coming soon.

My mother is dying. Slowly. Painfully. She’s not my biological mother – no. She died last year. This is the mother that raised me. So far this year we’ve had three close calls. Too close. Those dreaded words, “won’t last the night,” have indeed been spoken. She’s come back each time so far. But one day, and one day soon I fear, those prophetic words will be proven true.

I’ve tried to prepare myself. Doesn’t everyone when change blows on the wind? But I cannot fathom or be fully prepared for the loss of my mother. I’ve tried to prepare my children. But really? I don’t think I can. They’re small and know she’s been sick. I don’t want to ruin what little time they have with their grandmother.

My question to you, dear reader, is this: Does knowing change is coming make it any easier? My guess at the answer is no. But I’m about to find out for sure.


Michele is a working married mom of two special needs kids in Southern California. She writes at Sparks and Butterflies about her trials and tribulations – and sanity. “But aside from that – she’s still completely normal.”

I WILL

by Wendy of Things in Your Head.

The ocean always seemed to me to be a perfect metaphor for life. It is so vast and overwhelming, that while looking at it from a minute patch of shore, you are made to feel the smallness of yourself in relation. Which, I believe, is a good thing – especially when we, as children, tend to think of ourselves as the entire world. You can get anything out of the ocean that you wish; food, sport, relaxation, commerce, inspiration. It is up to you to carve out the meaning and use, much like life.

When we talked about taking my son to the beach for the first time, it was no big deal to my husband, since he had grown up with the ocean in his backyard. For me, living 3 hours away from the sea, it was an event, not merely happenstance. You planned for a viewing of the ocean; you did not simply glimpse it on your way about life. So we went into this day with different histories and different memories. And yet, when we saw the ocean through our son's eyes, we both felt the same moment in its enormity. I saw my husband take my son in his arms and look out and in that look, a million silent promises went forth: I will protect you; I will be there for you; I will never let you down; I will always love you; the world is out there – your family will always be behind you; I was so happy that I was able to capture that moment in this photograph; the digital equivalent of an old family story that no amount of words can properly relate as much as the image itself.

I have always loved the ocean. When my husband and I were first married, the ocean was fifteen minutes from our home. My favorite thing was to sit on the sand at dusk with a notebook in hand, listening to the wind, smelling the perfect perfume that only sand, salt and air can create, willing the moment to continue. It never did. As much as I begged the sun not to bend over the horizon, move out of sight, take its stunning pink-and-purple sky swirling out of view, it did and I mourned that moment, the end of a brilliance unable to be duplicated.

I no longer live near the ocean. I do not miss it the same way that my husband does but I do miss it. I know that I need the water to write and to feel and to create but I know that I will find my way back to it. From the time I was small, whenever anyone asked me where I thought I would wind up, I always answered: in a house by the sea. Whenever my creativity flags and I feel that I will never again have anything relevant to say or monumental to write about, I think to the beach. I feel it waits for me; that it knows the time is not right but we will meet up eventually.

My son looks at that picture now, framed in my study and he says 'Me and Daddy at the beach.' I am happy he has that memory since it seems, for now, that the ocean and he will not be frequent companions. But I do love that the ocean is something different for everyone who encounters it. There are no two ways to swallow the experience. It is a unique endeavor for all that feel that seductive sea air lift the hair off their face and sniff the unmistakable signature that is saltwater.

We will get back there one day. But for now, I am glad to have my son's first acquaintance with the ocean frozen in a combination of pixels and binary data for eternity.

Wendy

Wendy writes about matters small and insignificant with brazen authority at Things in Your Head. She loves music, books, candy corn and the word ‘consortium’. She hates boa constrictors and mean people.

Blog Review: The Misssy M Misssives

The blog: The Misssy M Misssives

The Reviewer: Nutmeg from Simply Nutmeg

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
Stick with me on this one because we all know we should never judge a book by its cover, and first impressions are often wrong. This said, my first impression of this blog was, "YAWN!" The design is one I've seen frequently -- a standard Blogspot theme with no header and a slightly confusing sidebar. I found the lack of "about me" information very frustrating. Flying Martinis? Is this a bartending blog? Misssy M Misssives? The most I could glean at a glance about her was, "That's me." Nothing informed me that the blogger was from Scotland, and why the extra letters everywhere? If I had found this blog by surfing, I would have clicked off quickly, never to return.

DESIGN:
Enough said. Here's my advice: Customize the blog just a bit with a clear header and more defined sidebar. Give us a much more thorough "about Misssy" even if we have to open up a new page. Maximize the potential of your exotic location (exotic to me and hordes of others); tell the reader upfront where you live. Please tell me why there are so many extra letters; do you lisp?

CONTENT:
Here's the thing: the day I landed on Misssy's missssssives, she had posted 1001 words about ketchup. If you've read my reviews or my own blog, you most likely know that I have a problem with long blog posts. This position is an educated one. A very large body of research on internet reading points overwhelmingly to the fact that we read differently on the web than we do when reading a print document. When we read print, more than fifty percent of the time we will flip to the rest of a story or article continued on a later page IF the writer has done a good job of hooking us and building the momentum to the continued part of the article. When we read on the web, rarely are we willing to page down for content. Web readers seek short, well-written, concise bites of information. We look for interaction on the page: links, internal pages, comment sections. We do not want to read 1000 words about ketchup. Missy posts regularly, on average, every other day. She does not link often.

That said, because I was reviewing, I read through a ton of Misssy's content, and slowly, very slowly, found myself getting hooked! Misssy writes extremely well and nothing pleases me more as a reviewer. She is clearly intelligent, has a droll sense of humor, and, best of all, her content is extremely varied. You can't predict what Misssy will tackle from day to day. She may reflect on her exotic travel, old lovers, Madonna, ketchup, a Yeats poem, her work, or the telly. You can predict that she will use a lot of words in her reflections.

BEST AND WORST:

Best: I came to thoroughly enjoy Misssy's writing and I loved the glimpse into life in Scotland. She has a bright and quirky brain and sees things in ways differently from me. I love her turn of phrase, subtle sarcasm, and perfect grammar!

Worst: I have read Faulkner; I like Faulkner; but I would not read a blog written by Faulkner. Blog readers tend to be people who work for long hours at a computer, like myself, and break up the day with quick blog reads. Misssy is rarely a quick read. My mind wanders. I start to skim. I start to obsess over those extra s's...

BLOGROLLWORTHY:

With only a few design changes, more links, and more condensed posts, I think Misssy would really fly. I'm sure I'll come back to her blog regularly now that I've gotten to know the Martini's. Will I finish every post? That remains to be seen!

SCORE:

I'm going with 7 with the disclaimer that this blog has great potential to be a Bo Derrik. There's proof of it in Misssy's TOPBLOGMAG piece from last week. It's a must-read!