can I be mindful? can I be positive?

So, I haven't moved way up a holler without running water or electricity and so been unable to blog (but maybe that's not such a bad idea...). I'm here. I think about writing but seldom make the time. I think about life. A lot. A whole lot. I think about the changes and opportunities that we have available in our lives. Both internal change and external change. I struggle with the relative importance of these two - internal and external - and I struggle to find the balance and happiness.

Both Wandering Dad and I have a tendency to be, well, critical. We want things our way. We want things done right. We want it to all line up. We want it to fall into place. Easily and quietly. Well, guess what. It doesn't. So we tend to be dissatisfied on some level. And we have trouble moving beyond that dissatisfaction to see the richness and wonderfulness of what we have. We have a lot on our plate right now, but we also are tremendously lucky in so many many ways.

So, instead of focusing on the stinky shrews that have colonized our wall and made out basement playroom smell like Yuck, I hope that we can focus on how wonderful it is to have a large playroom and what we can do to make this space a pleasant place to be as we go into winter (after the shrew stink is gone). Thoughts like that - for even the much larger things on our plate. Conscious thought transformation. Is that part of mindfulness?

I've been seeing the word mindfulness a lot lately in my reading. I read a bit here and a bit there (even my reading is disorganized these days - or actually, these years), and I see the idea of mindfulness, and I like it. But I'm still hesitant to use that term. I want to bring it into my life, but I'm still not sure I "get" it. I have been reading blogs and books and trying to learn about personal transformation and how to incorporate bits and pieces into my real life. I would like to be a better person, but I'm also trying to be realistic about how much I can do on the very limited time and energy I have as a working mother of young two high needs children. We're talking baby steps here.

And I've been thinking about how writing fits into my life. I write emails and chat with friends and things like that, but I think there is a place for writing here in this space, too. Somehow it helps me to write down some thoughts and then go back over them and proofread and try to make something that is a tad bit coherent and makes a smidgen of sense. It could also be helpful to write down current thoughts and goals and things I want to strive for. Accountability on a very very low level.

Another way that I think writing has helped me in the past is to organize my thoughts around the good things in my life. Writing here could provide a time to focus on the good things. When Wandering Dad and I were engaged for the last two years of our undergraduate days - him down south, and me up north-ish, we called and email and wrote letters. I loved to sit down and write letters about what I was doing and the little things that I saw or thought. The bugs or leaves or trees or sunshine or the warmth of the steps I was sitting on or people I saw, things like that (I think Wandering Dad probably got some odd letters!). Of course we wrote love letters, but we also wrote letters to share the little things in life. And I think writing like that brought those little things to the forefront and made them cherished.

When I was blogging somewhat regularly, and for weeks after I stopped, I would think about things in my life that were stories I wanted to tell. The little happy things. The good things. The things that give me warm fuzzies. Yes, I have written about some of the not so warm fuzzies, but I really enjoyed putting down the good things in writing. I took pictures on walks with the kids. I thought about what we were doing and how great it was and how I wanted to share it. And that was good! It was good to be searching my everyday life for the good things worth sharing. It felt good. Most of them never actually made it onto my blog, but I'm thinking about trying again. I want to bring those things to the forefront of my life. I want to consciously shift my thoughts toward the positive and good in my life. That doesn't mean I won't be grumpy or tired or lonely or dissatisfied with portions of my life, but I'll try not to dwell on those. Why not spend some energy on the happy things, too.