may my heart always be open to little birds

I hereby promise to myself that I will not turn this blog into the rantings of a woman who is obsessed with making a baby. This is not to say that I will not post daily, and will not chronicle my experiences to some extent. But I cannot let myself be consumed by all things "TTC." January was my practice month, and look how that turned out.

I made a chain with a link for each day of this month. It is an idea that I got from a woman on bedrest, as a coping mechanism to get throught the seemingly endless days and weeks. I did this for a slightly different reason, though, as 28 days is far from endless...

But each day is a precious gift that we have, and allowing myself to focus and obsess on OPKs and BDing and DPO and luteal phase length...and "am I?" or "am I not?" just has this terrible possibility inherent in it of sucking the very life force out of me. Which contradicts the very purpose of trying to make a baby...to create life.

I made the chain to remind me of that, and to help me to obsess less on which day it is and what CD I am at and if we should BD or not and all of that...I labeled each day for all of that information so that I will know. I can look at each day's link and it just says that on it. I also wrote highlights for each day as they applied (special events occurring and whatnot). And I wrote a quote on each one. I will include the quotes in my posts. I suppose I ought to start with today's quote (from now on I will put them at the start of my post).

"Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances."
-Benjamin Franklin

I realized something else today as I was looking for one of my favorite poems. The poem is by e.e. cummings, my favorite poet (his poem "i carry you in my heart" is one that reminds me of William...I put it in a previous post somewhere). The poem is "may my heart always be open to little birds" and Mr. C and I included it in our wedding program. It is on a the wall in our kitchen and I look at it almost every day. I wanted to have an electronic copy of it, so I was looking for it online. My search led me by accident to a blog titled "little birds" which is an artist's blog. I linked from it to another artist's blog (the sister of the "little birds" woman). I was inspired by this woman. Not necessarily by the work she does (although I like it a great deal) but by how prolific she is. And she works a full-time job (in education, no less) but she makes time for her art.

I am an artist. I am not saying that in the sense that makes Mr. C (an amazing musician, by the way) want to vomit. He abhors it when someone declars him/herself to be an artist. I am not declaring it in that way, as though it makes me important or significant. I am stating it as a simple fact: I am an artist. Just as I might say that I am a woman, or a mother, or a teacher...

But I allow myself very little time and space to create art. Here is my lame excuse: I don't have the time. The kind of art that I create takes TIME. Oh, but I do have time (just look at how much time I spend with this laptop, blogging and reading/replying to messages on the boards...)

I have time. But I haven't been spending it doing art because...here's the truth that I don't want to face but I will...Art allows me to feel deeply and even though I know I have allowed myself to feel deeply since I lost William I am scared of the chasm it feels like I will fall into if I allow myself to feel as deeply as painting allows me to feel.

I love painting. I would rather paint than do just about anything.

I, for the life of me, now that I see it in black and white like this, cannot think of a good reason (besides the chasm-thing) of why I would not allow myself to do something that I love so intensely.

So I will.

Here is the poem, then. I suppose it would be silly not to post it considering the importance it played in my self-revelation that I had today.
________________________________________________________

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

-e.e. cummings