Old/New World Discourse: Creativity and the Frump

It's transition time. By this point, next month, this blog will cease to exist. Something else will grow in its place, but it won't be "Old/New World Discourse."

Meanwhile, despite the fact that during the last few years of writing this blog, the identity of my children has remained protected, they continue to espouse opinions about this venue and about their mom whose work fills it. Missy Oldest, for instance, contends that instead of my writing about her and her siblings here and in a few other, select places, she ought to write about her "parents," in girls' ezines; the former does nothing to fill her pocket, but the latter would beat out babysitting money.

Missy Youngest, meanwhile, takes pleasure in encouraging verbal barrages between her mother and her sister about writing, about writing venues, and about who left the lint in the dryer. The kid's realized that if the two of us remain preoccupied with word portraits or with the right combination of lemon juice and olive oil in salad dressing that we're less likely, respectively, to notice: that her weeks' old dead lunch has been buried in her clothes hamper, and that she "borrowed" the skirts and shirts she is using to camouflage that decaying food. 

As for Computer Cowboy, he encourages me to write whatever seems to float my boat at a given moment. A logical positivist to the core, the man came to understand, several decades ago, that if his wife is happy, his life is peaceable.

Consider that he is an adult who uses a melon scooper, not for scraping falafel mix into a deep fryer, or for cleaning the litter box, but for making pretty pieces out of fruit. Furthermore, he yawns when approached to mental jaw more of my essays, so if his encouragement keeps me away, he's full of affirmations.

As for Boy-Getting-Taller, he thinks I ought to yield to the world of simultaneous submissions, or in the very least, to focus my work on hibernaculums and on their spiky inhabitants given that hedgehogs are indigenous to Israel. When I responded by offering to write about his yeshiva class' latest travels, instead of about chimerae, he frowned, reached down, and attempted to pat my head.

I responded by researching his favorite cartoon and then by selecting a frame that referenced adolescents as recycled toddlers. The boy shrugged in answer, thanked me for the comic strip and disappeared into that wonder known as his room.

Boy-Who-Needs-Books, who, to date, remains captivated by the possibilities inherent in Lego, took time away from his plastic architecture to remind me that the totality of my writings was akin, in his mind, to an erasure of intersubjectivity, and that the meaning-making I had attempted for two years, in this blog, was of questionable worth. He also asked if he could snack on chocolates before bed.

And yet, the decorum of my family usually brings me positive effect. Whereas the provocation of friends prompted me to write, for The Jerusalem Post, about my academically-enhanced understanding of Israeli culture, it has been the provocation of the ones I birthed and of the one who helped me with that effort that has pulled me in new directions.

In the forthcoming, last three, "Old/New World Discourse" entries, I will attempt to: review where I've been, introduce to who I am (Jewish mothers do things seemingly backwards), and extend an invitation to you to read the next Jerusalem Post rendition of my thoughts (these latter being irreverent rather than scholarly). In the meantime, I plan to continue to enjoy my writing and my family.

After all, rejection slips are a means of pruning both craft and self. Alternatively, acceptances fill in gaps, but don't provide the essence of life. Stay tuned.