I ended my last blog asking readers, “Are you a Tiger Mom? Cheetah Mom? A fierce feline mother of great prowess? If so, what is your story?
What hopes and dreams do you hold for your daughters and/or sons?
What are your passions?
Are and if so, how are you living them out?”
On reading the last three questions I realized that I had segued into new territory.
The hopes and dreams we hold for our children lie separate from our passions, unless that is we are living vicariously through our children.
The latter was and is never my intention.
I have a stockpile of goals I seek to achieve, apart from the success I wish for our daughters in identifying their unique passions and searching out ways to manifest them in tangible ways.
The challenge with which I have continually grappled centers on how to attend living out my passions, while simultaneously nurturing our children to find their passions.
Better put, how to do this and not forget about my children.
Could this be the reason I have operated, while yet on a covert basis, as such a fierce feline mother?
Presently I am reading Brunonia Barry’s novel The Map of True Places.
Dr. Mattei, a secondary character in the novel, and a psychiatrist who specializes in treating women with bi-polar disorder holds a theory, holds the belief that, “Daughters seek to live out their mothers’ abandoned dreams.”
The plot and this statement on which the emotional narrative of the story rests has set me to pondering the dreams I have abandoned amidst the work of manifesting my passion of writing and publishing novels.
Having one collection of short stories, and first publication, Keeper of Secrets… Translations of an Incident (June 2007), see print through traditional route provided by a small publisher, I have since published a novel, The House (October 2010) and will within the next six months release my second novel, and third publication, Seasons in Purdah.
The sense of accomplishment that has arisen from this work has filled internal spaces I had no idea existed, never mind remained empty. I am grateful for the support of my husband and the new developments in computer technology along with Internet social media for providing the tools by which for me to bring my words to print.
It is truly a great feeling to work on a schedule that I control and that allows me the freedom to write at my own pace, one much slower than required by most traditional publishing contracts.
I am dedicated to taking care of our daughters first such that when all three reach adulthood I can focus the majority of my attention on writing, and without regret of what I did not provide our children.
Live has allowed me to express my creative energies in innumerable ways.
And yet I wonder about my ability to stop and smell the roses.
Slowing the pace of my life, and living in the moment provides a challenge for me.
I am forever writing, contemplating stories, considering plot lines, analyzing narrative threads. Even when I am driving I converse with my characters.
This mental combustion occurs in my head, remains internal except for the notes I write in the many spiral notebooks and journals.
Then there is my obsession with reading.
I never leave the house without a book, paperback and those listed in my Amazon account and with which I can connect through my phone or iPad.
What is this about–this continual need to write stories and novels that spring from my compulsion to imagine?
It is a wellspring lacking a faucet where even if one existed I would not want to turn off.
Will I ever experience the desire to sit and enter silence as I did when practicing vipassana meditation during the early years of my marriage, and a young mother to our eldest daughter, now twenty-four years old?
Perhaps my devotion and compulsion to writing has become my practice, the solitary activity that produces the silence wherein I empty the contents of my mind, examine the passion of my imagination and discover who I am.
And so what is my unfinished dream, the hope or wish that I have abandoned?
Could it be to live without question or examination, lose all self-consciousness and accept one’s self for the person you are and are continually becoming?
What are you hopes, and wishes for this lifetime?
Are you living or seeking to live them out?
If not what dreams have you abandoned?
Do you see any possibilities of reclaiming them?