Few precious hours left of the day....

So, it's evening. I have tucked the two "youngers" in about three times now. I also read to them longer than I said I would. Tonight it was a few Bill Peet selections. I loved Bill Peet when I was a child. I loved our community library, too, it was a wonderful historical place, but it didn't have enough Bill Peet books.

The children's room was in the basement. And I remember when I was old enough to venture upstairs and check out books from the adult shelves, one of the first books I remember checking out was Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. I'm sure there were probably other books before Siddhartha, especially non-fiction titles, but an English translation of the German author was the first thing I remember checking out. I even remember where the "H" section was in the adult fiction.

Oh, how many times have I wished that I never would have pursued the German language and German literature track in my life. It wasn't totally a loss, but what real good came out of it. Certainly, if I think for awhile I'll remember many wonderful reading selections (auf Deutsch) and many fun times had with other German students....but it was/is a kinda depressing culture, maybe I see it that way because how can a person ever forget the Holocaust and that most horrible period of history. I've read many accounts, I've been to Dachau...it sucks. I know that I am part German, but who really gives a damn? My ancestors, bless their souls, came to this country way before Hitler. Thank God. And I have ancestors of other nationalities, too, I wish I knew more about them, particularly the rumored Native American blood that flows in my veins and arteries. [Why does the expression "Flows through my veins" leave out arteries? I mean I love my arteries, especially the aorta. Anyway, it's just an expression, but still, why arteries and not veins?]

So, I think the kiddos are in bed for good for this night. My youngest often gets up in the middle of the night and makes his way into the "big bed." My husband and I have a king size bed, even though we're smaller than average people--I'm just under 5 ft! We got a king size bed after the birth of our 2nd child. It seemed like a better alternative to the crib. In those early parenting years I lost a lot of sleep...that was one of the hardest things. Lack of sleep. Someday I'd like to be paid to take care of new mothers and their babies so they can get some rest and not become sleep-deprived and depressed like I did.

See what I mean about the free flow, stream of consciousness writing. It takes over. I do it almost exclusively because I rarely find time to edit or plan these days. Just write whenever I get a few minutes. A couple years ago I went on a year long letter writing quest in which I said I would write a letter to my sister who lives in Minnesota once a week. This sister does not have a computer or an e-mail account, I don't even know if she has library privileges. She's on social security disability for a biological brain disorder, but evenso, she is a very gifted/talented/intelligent woman and lonely. So I wrote to her weekly for a little over a year. She rarely wrote me back, but through my letters we did reestablish contact with each other and sometimes I called her or she called me, but I selfishly could not sustain my letter writing. I felt exposed sometimes after telling her important things and wondering who might else have access to my letters, but nonetheless it was a writing quest and I did finish it. I need to learn to write for myself. I expressed a lot of love for my sister in my letters, told her about my problems sometimes, and truly, I suppose I got as much, if not more out of the writing experience than she did out of reading my letters--I'm assuming.

I don't think anyone is going to read this Blog and I'm definitely ok with that, for now.

~Liz