A New Chapter: Short and Sweet and Scattershot

Autumn on Mount Tabor: Portland, Oregon

As I will myself to hold to an ever-fading notion of free time and nimble digits, I keep imagining I’m going to sit and tap on the keyboard with two free hands for more than two minutes.

Truth be told, that may not happen for a long, long time. These very words are appearing first on the screen of my iPhone as my thumb bumbles over iOS buttons.

Autocorrect makes judgments as I go, and I wrestle in a fit of reality vs. lofty goals.

I hold a sleeping baby in my left arm, and my right hand holds the phone, not quite willing to let go of the grasp I have (…had?) on my little corner of the online world.

I love my blog.

I love writing, taking photos, tying up bundles of experience into tidy posts.

But the past (current?) season found me limited to even tinier bundles: flickers of pixels on Instagram, short bursts on Twitter, and photos on Facebook featuring the tiniest bundle of them all, my 8lb 6oz Peach. There was no time for the the 3,000-word, 20-picture collections I enjoyed curating pre-pregnancy.

I let go (mostly) of the blog this past year while I focused on preparing for the arrival of our baby. It was a healthy release, an inversion of last year’s daily play-by-play published for the world to read.

But now, as Ted and I live this adventure of parenthood with little Lucie, I want to practice another form of letting go: celebrating life and releasing myself just a little bit more from perfectionist expectations.

This autumn, instead of wishing away for more free time to write, and instead of not posting at all for fear of less-than-epic posts, I’m experimenting, switching gears.

I’m going for heroic elegaic. (Kidding. Literary joke for my mom.)

No, actually, I’m going to give myself permission to post tiny tidbits instead of belabored features.

I miss the joy of sharing on the blog, and I’ve realized I’d rather happily post a vivid (or not-so) photo and a humble little paragraph than miserably share nothing at all…

I so enjoy catching other writers’ bursts of joy and quick captioned moments. Why not embrace it?

So, here goes a new experiment.

For the next two months I’m going to allow myself freedom to share short and sweet and scattershot.

We’ll see how it goes between now and Christmas.

Some posts may be memories of markets in Thailand, others may be Portland outings with the Peach. I might jump continents and jumble themes, and I’ll more than certainly cringe a few times when I push “publish,” but I’d rather imperfectly share the things that make me smile than perfectly hide behind fears of incomplete masterpieces.

For heaven’s sake. It’s just the internet…right?

xx Bethany

Until the next post, I’ll leave you with a few recent favorites from around the web:

Short & Sweet:
fox {Documenting Delight}
where it all began {Where My Heart Resides}
A Little Longer:
travelogue: weekend in yosemite valley {Hither & Thither}