Ravine of Light

So that's what the name of this new blog means. I chose it to help keep me from getting too bitter and angry. I get that way sometimes ... especially when politics and/or religion get involved. So I'm going to try and stay in the light. I found the name in the back of my huge Costco-esque copy of Lord of the Rings. It's a place name that appears on page 229 ... so pretty early on in the grand scheme of things.

Apparently all of us are being creative today. I've just been interrupted at different intervals by both children to show me drawings. Dd (the oldest) to show me a drawing she has done of herself and Hermione (a character from the famed Harry Potter series). She is anxiously awaiting the next book. I keep telling her to breath. It will come. Ds to show me a comic he is making of his beloved Bionicles. He doesn't have to wait as long between installments on his fantasy creatures.

Lightgirl (dare I call her that?) is 11 and an (all important) half. She is maturing very quickly and frightening her father and I to death. Having a girl was very easy when she was little. Having a girl as a pre-teen and teen is not going to be so easy I fear. She teeters between girlhood and adulthood, peeking into one and lounging in the other. These next few years are going to be bumpy.

Lightboy was much harder when he was little and is easier now. He's 8 and he's all in your face. My father says he pirouettes on the edge of danger. That's true. But that is easier somehow. The physical dangers are easier to identify and protect him from ... or at least to warn him about. It's also easier to let him learn those lessons. A skinned knee is easier to soothe than a skinned heart ... and it heals over time ... the heart, not so much.

I really shouldn't be doing this right now. My other responsibilities on this planet are to my church family. I'm supposed to be enlightening them this Sunday morning ... but right now I'm engaged in the lovely task of procrastination. I prefer to think of it as percolation. I've gathered information and now I'm letting it all work together ... like with Indian food, the spices are all melding. But really, we all know, I'm procrastinating ... I'm putting off the inevitable ... which will make me crabby and hostile on Saturday. My husband will knowingly and wisely cart the children off somewhere to give Mom some "alone" time. We try other cycles ... other ebb and flows of the tide ... really we do ... but they never seem to work. It's the inevitablity of the last minute that produces the best work in my head. But now I need to bring this to an end and at least try to have most of the hard work done tomorrow, so maybe ... just maybe I won't need to be Momma Crab on Saturday this time. Say a prayer or two for me ... if you think of it.