Why haven't you written?

I've been reading other weblogs lately and have been awed by their power and beauty. And I come back here and wince at the paucity (see, there's an important word) of words here. Many thoughts and ideas drift through my head during the day, but I'm constantly moving and tending and I write nothing down because, well, holding a pen or sitting at a computer seems incompatible with chasing a toddler brandishing a soggy diaper in one hand and a purloined coffee cup in the other, or pulling the baby back out from under the recliner yet again, or making yet another of the endless stream of meals these creatures seem to need throughout the day, or dealing with Dear Husband on the phone for the fourth time today (he may be in Denver, but he's doing his best to make sure I don't miss him too much). The time I might spend writing -- when both babes are napping (I know, how lucky am I to get simultaneous naps most days?!?) or after I put them to bed at night -- usually trickles away to cleaning up or working or doing homework or maybe, just maybe working on the quilt I started for Maggie two months ago.

And I think being in survival mode for so long has muted me. How can I sit down and think and write from a deep place when I've been treading water for... well, years now? Ranting is easy -- something from the outside pings me and I have a stockpile of righteous anger at the ready, and it's easy to fire something off when it doesn't come from the heart. A heart I hardly know anymore, at least some corners of it. My children absorb me, happily 98 percent of the time, and I could never have imagined the depths of caring and passion I've found with them. But other things are going on inside that I'm ignoring, or unaware of, because I just don't want to sit down (I like to say "set down" in keeping with my old-timey ways) and dig and sift through all the dirt and roots and old buried things. Get my hands dirty. Sit on the ground for a while next to the hole and the piles to sort it all out. Uninterrupted, unavailable. I don't have the space to do that right now and haven't quite figured out yet when I'll really be ready to make that space. Maybe I'm starting now, making some tentative scratches at the dirt to see whether it's muddy or packed solid or just dormant, crumbly and dark and still fertile under its thin winter crust.

Given that it's almost 12:30 a.m. and Maggie will probably be up at 4 and both kids again at 7, I have to wash my hands now and go to bed. But first, two bits of (good!)news:

-I got DSL service today -- DSL, out here in the boondocks!
-Maggie started crawling for real today -- going forward on hands and knees, eyes fixed on destination, plot for world domination hatching underneath her sweetly scented hair.