A virtual balancing act

I’m here (after a rather lengthy absence) to write about something, and that thing is balance. I’m evidently not very good at balancing blogging or social media presence with the other areas of my life.

In fact, I recently deactivated my Facebook account. Currently I’m trying to be a writer while also parenting, working, homeschooling, musicking, taking a seven-month Work That Reconnects course, dealing with health challenges, recovering from society by spending time with trees, and generally trying to live life lightly and well. It’s almost impossible to fit it all in. Instagram is sometimes fast and easy enough; I take a lot of pictures of the woods anyway, and I like to share my little ‘today, in the forest’ thought-poems. But Facebook is a black hole; TikTok seems like it’s for younger and hipper folks than me; and, perhaps scandalously for an aspiring writer, I refuse to have a Goodreads account and instead keep track of books I have read and want to read in a good old-fashioned paper notebook.

Sometimes I wonder how I will look back on this period of my writing life once things (I hope) calm down; its flavour is somewhat jumbled. There are many days with no space to sit still and think or read or write a poem for ten minutes, but there are also some quiet times when I get the chance to do my own work at my own speed in my own chosen order. That experience of ownness feels delicious, rare, and needed. I’m taking those moments when they come, and I’m also learning to not compare myself to more ‘serious’ poets: the ones who have been well-known for years, or who write for a living, or who are Instafamous, or who have published nine (or, well, any) books of poetry already, or who make engaging video content every day.

This is a jumbled time for me. Writing seems to happen in the cracks of life right now. But as long as it’s happening even that little bit, I won’t complain.