I was sitting in my neighbor's kitchen having coffee this morning, looking out over her spectacular view of the San Diego coast, and wishing we didn't live on the other side of the street.  We were chatting about the things neighbors chat about, and I told her about my recent daily writing expedition for BlogHer's NaBloPoMo.  And lo and behold, today's writing prompt asks us "Would you rather have more blog readers or more blog comments?"  This is timely for me because I was lamenting  that the blog I started with one measly entry back in 2006 not only fails to define me now, but I fear it also fails to attract readers.  Being gluten free defined me then, because I allowed it to define me.  All these years later, however, being gluten free represents only one very small facet of my life, my experience, and what I feel I can contribute to the Blogosphere.

Point in fact:  I finally had the chance yesterday to visit and peruse Melissa Ford's blog, "Stirrup Queens."  Before visiting, I couldn't imagine what a blog of that title was about.  I assumed she was an expert of all things horsey; that perhaps she road horses, showed horses, owned a barn, shoveled shit in a barn, heck, maybe she even did her writing in her barn.  I've met some horsey people from my daughter's years of taking riding lessons, and am familiar with the drama that tends to go on in barns.  I thought it could be an entertaining way to pass the afternoon, and it could prove to be good research.  Well you could have knocked me over with a flake of hay when I discovered that the stirrups to which she was referring were the ones we women put our heels into when a doctor type is having a look...er, down there!

It turns out that Stirrup Queens is a meticulous blog, into which Melissa has put an incredible amount of volunteer work.  It connects women who are dealing with or have dealt with infertility (IF), whatever the outcome.  Oh, to have had access to this fifteen years ago, but it still very much resonated with me because it isn’t something you forget or ever get over.  Within her blog are sub-blogs that help connect those with one diagnosis vs. another who, through whatever means, achieved pregnancy but without a baby at the end (me), those who have adopted, and those who were blessed to give birth to a baby or babies at the end of it all (also me, very fortunately so).  Through Melissa's blog, I came upon "Certainly Not Cool Enough To Blog," written by a woman who identifies herself only as "msfitzita," whose journey through infertility has come to an unfruitful end, with which she is trying to make peace.  She writes so eloquently about being a "childless mother," and being in "perpetual mourning," and her feelings are so raw and palpable; she puts into words almost everything I've ever felt about being a mother, trying to be a mother again, being a mother whose monumental efforts end in loss, and even being a mother who can't believe some days how blessed I am to have become one again.  I can't know how it feels to be a mother who can't touch, sing to, mold, treasure, and even fight with her children, except through msfitzita's beautifully penned words, and others like her.

It's been tossing about in my mind for some time, but it is partly through reading her blog that I understood that being a mother is the very essence of who I am, and permeates every facet of who I became the moment I realized I was pregnant with my daughter at only twenty years old and alone; as well, through the struggles and riches of being a step-mom.  If I possess an ounce of the power to help and connect others as these women do, I would rather have more readers, whether or not they ever post a comment.  I don't think I can do that with the Gluten-Free Gratefully name I chose for my blog so many years ago.  The only people who are likely to read it now are those who are looking specifically for gluten-free answers, recipes and advice, of which there are probably thousands out there now.  Back then there weren't so many, and if I hadn't been so mired in our daily dietary and behavioral struggles, and trying to survive from one day to the next, like Melissa I might now be recognized as a pioneer in that community.
  
And here's another thing...I didn't follow the normal, ‘conventional medicine’ path to have my son.  I started out that way, but my path veered off in a very different direction, when I overcame my polycystic ovarian syndrome and endometriosis through natural, dietary and holistic means. This is also something about which I feel I can share and contribute.  It is also the original vision I had for my wannabe website, "GlutenNaziMom;" yet another example of the ideas being right there, but the execution hovering just out of reach due to my self-diagnosed ADD ways.  Not only am I all over the place in my daily life, I'm pretty much all over the place on the internet, too.  So in this particular case, if you are reading, I would appreciate your comments with any pointers in the right direction.  Speaking of which, I need to catch up on that Writing for the Internet online course I'm taking so I can figure out how to put it all together into one place.

Stay tuned......

I tried to write yesterday, really I did.  My day began delightfully, with a rare hour and a half spent talking with my mom on the phone.  She was excited and energized about her business and a new friendship with possibilities of romance, and she has a great idea about how to develop her business this year.  I encouraged her to take a leap of faith and go for it.  I was energized and excited by my newly developed "daily" writing habit which, for my ADD addled brain, is a pretty hard habit to come by.  Of course she was proud of me and encouraged me to keep it up. 

Just a little caffeine helps keep me somewhat focused, but some (many) days it's not enough.  Yesterday was one of those days.  It didn't help that I had a hair appointment I had to rush to get ready for, the gecko needed worms (like, bad!), my son had Taekwondo after school, homework had to be done, dinner wasn't even on the radar yet, so somewhere in there a quick stop at the grocery store was required.  By the time I had a moment to write, I was beyond pooped, and nothing I came up with was worthy of publishing.

And, well, The Bachelor's "The Women Tell All" episode was on and I was distracted by the horrific behavior of those women toward one another, again.  I am still dumbfounded by any of it surrounding this particular bachelor (sorry, Ben).  He has a certain charm to him, but he needs to stop cutting his own hair and the smacking!  He is the smackiest kisser I can recall on any Bachelor or Bachelorette season yet.  I actually found him more appealing in the silliness of the outtakes than during what's been aired all season.   

So why am I still watching?  Why are any of us still watching?  Why do any of the shows that depict people, particularly women, who behave so badly toward one another draw such an audience?  Clearly, the presence of cameras brings out the worst in people who aren't trained or scripted to behave otherwise, and maybe that's the key to and the definition of (anti-)Reality TV.

Perhaps shows like that allow us to become absorbed in someone else's drama momentarily; to fantasize about how we would have liked to respond to that parent at school who yelled at our kid, or the person in front of us at the grocery store with thirty-eight items in the fifteen item or less express lane, or even our husband who "helpfully" removes the package of plastic cups from the refrigerator and stores them above our eye level so we have to search frantically to find them when we need them to go to school with the drink we have to provide for the class Valentine's Day party, which is why they were in the bag in the refrigerator with the drinks that went with them in the first place; so that our ADD brain couldn't possibly leave for school without them!

Sometimes I would love to be the lady who talks to herself like there's someone standing next to her by the grapefruit and then by the peppers and again by the apples (and I never did see her buy anything), or that person who parks their car all askew and makes no attempt to fix it, or the one to leave a package of pork chops on the shelf by the laundry detergent instead of taking it up front to the checkout where a bagger can run it back to refrigeration, but I'm not.  I'm just the girl who sometimes gets distracted a little too easily and forgets what she was doing five minutes ago, who leaves laundry in the washer too long and has to rewash it, who forgets to buy worms for the gecko for two weeks, or who has a little trouble focusing on her writing on a particularly hectic day and just needs to escape reality for a little while...Squirrel!

On a recent visit with her family to San Diego, my girlfriend, Anna, shared a great book with me; "The Happiness Project," by Gretchen Rubin.  I've only read the first couple chapters so far, but perhaps you've noticed in my blog that I've been conscious of making the best of being so far away from family, longtime friends and what will always be home.  Let me tell you, spending the afternoon with newer friends, sitting beside a pool on March 4 was definitely a good reason to be grateful and happy today.

I just love pools, beaches, and activities of any kind on any body of water.  Growing up in a resort town on the shores of Lake Michigan has made me a water child, for sure.  Plus I'm a Cancer, which is a water sign.  I also love books.  One of my favorite things to do while relaxing by a pool is read a great book.

I dearly miss books, in fact.  Good old-fashioned, curl the pages back, dogear them all you want, paperback books.  I love to display hardcover books; the colors of the jackets and the art are pleasing to me.  I have books out in my guest room in case my guests can't sleep.  And once upon a time, I even had two large library shelves filled with books in my living room.  My children have all had vast book collections; even Aidan, who is coming of age in the tablet generation. 

I've been trying to get accustomed to reading e-books, but it's just not the same.  I miss hungrily turning each page.  I miss the smell of books; ruffling the pages so the smell wafts up on the breeze it makes.  Books feel warm and like things to be treasured, tablets seem cold and impersonal.  Most of all, I miss passing along a book to a good friend, and receiving one in return.

I'm trying to be hip...after all, I'm writing a BLOG, aren't I?  But let's just say that I'm not in love with my tablet just yet in the same way that I've always enjoyed a love affair with a great book.

I've been very fortunate in my life to be enfolded by a large support group of women; the equivalent of a constant hug.  I have been blessed with two wonderful daughters, my mother, grandmothers, mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, aunts, bosses, employees, roommates, neighbors and exceptional girlfriends.  We’ve leaned on one another in times of struggle, and we’ve celebrated one another’s victories.

Of course there have been other women in my life; women who have been less support system, more saboteur or even assassin.  And in fact today’s blog is inspired by a friend’s Facebook status that was lamenting mean girls in her daughter’s first grade class.  This is about the good, not the ugly, but I regularly see snippets from anti-reality shows like any of the Real Housewives, Jersey Shore or practically anything else on MTV, The Bachelor (a guilty pleasure of mine, as much as I hate myself for not just watching, but downright anticipating such drivel—let’s call it research), and wonder what we’re teaching young girls today about how real women function in the real world.  Reality TV is the farthest thing from reality in most cases, and it certainly doesn’t represent my experience of how the majority of grown up women relate to one another in the real world.

My Posse has taught me to cheer women on, to vote for women, to hold them up and help them succeed.  We forgive the occasional misspoken word, give the benefit of doubt in most cases, and accept apologies when offered.  We hope for only the best in life for our women, and we’re there to help them survive, overcome and learn from the all too common snag. 

I always knew how lucky I was to have so many wonderful women in my life, but moving to California has given me the opportunity to value them even more, and to miss them desperately.  It’s also given me the opportunity to meet some amazing women, and begin to build a posse that spans the U.S., literally coast to coast.  And NaBloPoMo on BogHer is a wonderful reason to provide a whole lot of love to a multitude of really thoughtful, talented women writers.  I’m proud to count myself as one of them.

Would you rather make your own choices or have someone make them for you?

That's the writing "inspiration" we received for today's NaBloPoMo post.  Wow.  If you knew my whole history, you would know that's a perfect question for me to ask myself.  I have a history of not actually making choices, but letting things happen to me.  Or more like procrastinating so long that I'm out of choices and there's only one thing left to do.  

Take for instance, having my daughter alone at the tender age of twenty.  I didn't want any other opinions influencing my decision, so I didn't tell anyone until I was nearly six months pregnant.  I was living in Kalamazoo with several roommates, any one of whom I could have told, but I kept it to myself.  I wasn't ready to face the reality of what would come next; telling my family.  It was so easy to hide being away, and living with frequently drunken women apparently, because nobody ever guessed.  But whether or not I was ready to tell my secret to the world, she continued to grow.  Whether or not I was ready to be a mother, I was blessed with the most delightful daughter.  Whether or not I was the best mother, or perhaps despite having me as a mother, she has blossomed into a spectacular woman who is a college graduate and who is getting married later this year. 

Our restaurant is another example of one of my anti-choices.  Owning a restaurant was a dream my husband had long before we met, when he was a firefighter/paramedic/police officer and used to cook in the firehouse.  When we were living in a southwest suburb of Chicago, two states away from his daughter, the second daughter I've been so very blessed to have (also a spectacular woman, despite having me as a step-mother), the restaurant represented a purpose for coming home.  That I wanted to do.  I didn't like our family being so fractured, and I didn't like being away from my hometown, and I rather liked the idea of us building something and working on something together.  I dreamed of myself handling the front of the house, my husband handling the back of the house, and us working beautifully together.  The reality hit when three months after we opened he received a job offer in his field, and suddenly I was running the restaurant solo.

When I did make a conscious choice to have a baby together with my husband, nature seemed at every turn to tell me no.  It took six years of dogged determination on my part:  a miscarriage, hormones, surgeries, drastically changing my diet, changing everything I'd believed before about health, baby making and child raising and unapologetic-ly driving my family absolutely crazy.  But without all of that, there would be no Aidan, and I think the world would miss him.  I know our family would.

Flash forward to moving to San Diego last year; leaving behind my hometown, our house of twelve years, our extended families all living within an hour, being able to get to our daughters within 24 hours, and a multitude of friends for my husband, myself and our son, and my poor husband is forced to drag me nearly kicking and screaming across the country.  That was a long drive, and it only got longer the closer we got to the west coast.

I look back and see many occasions in my life when I've been little more than a passive bystander.  I've been angry at others and blamed them for taking away my power, when it was really I who gave it away.  It's only taken me 45 years to recognize that.  The Poky Little Puppy strikes again.

Whether I consciously make a choice, or allow others to make it for me, it is always my choice as to how I handle the results.  There have been times I've made good choices, and times I've handled things rather poorly.  I think I always come around eventually, but seriously, isn't it just easier when I'm happy?

I thought Spring Fever was a phenomena belonging only to those living in Northern or Midwestern states, but my girlfriend here in sunny SoCal said her son was feeling it this morning, and my son has mentioned it in the last couple of days, too. I guess March 1 is March 1 whether you live in Michigan where we hail from, or Southern California where we live now.

Of course, the weather in Michigan this year hasn't been nearly as extreme as in years past. My friends in the southwest corner enjoyed a 65 degree Leap Year bonus, and there were celebrations all over Facebook...and then it snowed that evening. They've only had a few good sledding days, and at times their high temperature has just about matched ours in San Diego. Yesterday, in fact, it was higher.

I find myself feeling nostalgic for spring, but for springs past; for the crocuses poking up through crusty snow; for the fresh smell of loamy soil; for the annual laugh among neighbors at the one couple who shoveled their slowly dwindling snow piles ONTO their driveway about this time each year. Of course I'm nostalgic for anything at all to do with Michigan, except perhaps for that one set of crazy inhabitants of the old neighborhood.

I didn't come willingly to San Diego. It wasn't a choice on my part, except to keep my children's parents together, which is of course the worthiest of choices. Were it not for San Diego, however, I don't think I would be taking the steps I am to follow the dream I've had since middle school of being a writer. I would have likely remained complacent with my Michigan life, and done nothing but continue to dwell on an empty dream.

Here I am faced with so much time alone, that I have no choice but to look inside and ask what I hope to be. Here there are a bevy of choices in what classes to attend, workshops, writers groups, and it seems more accepted, even expected of someone to want more for herself. Whether it's near obsessive exercising, botoxing or shopping, many of the moms here seem to make no apologies about focusing on themselves during their children's school day, and I'm beginning to admire it and even strive for it.

Maybe it should be our time; my time. After sacrificing clothes, a social life, income, job advancement, and risking the dreaded hole in our resumes, isn't it about time we think about what we want to be when we grow up? I've been a mom for twenty-five years, for nearly all of my adult life, and of course I wouldn't trade it for anything. But I have my last child at home, and if I don't work on myself now, if I don't take the opportunities that are available to me and use this time being on the complete opposite side of the country from both of my girls; the very essence of who I have been only so much more, then I'm not only cheating myself, I'm cheating them when they become mothers and must struggle with some of the same challenges.

But why is it so hard for me? It's hard to believe in myself and my dreams, it's hard to justify sitting at my computer all day spending the time writing. It's really tough to spend the money on classes that may or may not pay off one day. And most of all, it feels damn near insurmountable to even imagine submitting anything I've written and risk certain rejection, let alone actually do it.

I'm afraid I don't have the answers. Maybe I just have to accept that doubting myself is a battle I will continue to fight every day, and make myself do it anyway. After all, I did take that creative writing class last fall, and it went very well. I'm currently taking an online class on Internet writing markets, and I'm signing up for Creative Writing II, with the same instructors I adored from the first session. I'm friends on Facebook with Margaret Dilloway, a local San Diego author who wrote the delightful, "How to be an American Housewife," and who frequently posts great pieces about writing that I'm finding inspirational and informative. In fact it was she who lead me to seek out the classes I'm taking.

Perhaps I haven't come very far from The Poky Little Puppy I was dubbed by Mrs. Wisebrook in kindergarten, but slowly and surely, I'm fighting my way to becoming a local San Diego author, too.