Shifting Normal

I have a confession to make: I don’t always know what to write about.

I consider this space, which I’ve filled twice a month for the past nine years, to be a place of mostly happy, occasionally bittersweet, musings. I’ve written about gardening and hiking, skiing and stargazing, loving pets and raising kids. These are the things, often, that fill my time.

But there are weeks when I come up blank. Maybe, if you’re a regular reader here, you’ve noticed some columns – the weeks when I struggle to find relevant subject matter – are a bit less zippy than others. Then again, the columns I consider mundane are often the ones people seem to like best. I guess there is value in the everyday.

I often dismiss the ideas that come to mind for various reasons. The kids don’t always want the details of their day-to-day lives shared, and I have to respect that. I don’t like to write about anything political, because there are other places for that – and, quite frankly, I’ve never been all that great at persuasive writing. There are things that happen in my world that I sometimes want to write about, but can’t figure out how – or that I figure no one really wants to read about anyway.

And there are weeks like this, where anything I’d care to share seems, well, just plain trivial.

Australia is on fire and has been for weeks. Closer to home, the weather is all sorts of out-of-whack in what feels like a new normal – until it changes again. It’s snowing as I write this, but we’ve only had a few very cold days this season, and Saturday’s temps are forecasted to top 50 degrees. There’s no longer any such thing as a January thaw, because we’re in a repeating freeze-thaw cycle.

There is political discontent everywhere you turn. It’s exhausting on so many levels – and we haven’t even made it to the First In The Nation Primary yet. 

The kicker is that my children have asked me several times this week if we are on the brink of World War III. For all you grownups out there who think kids aren’t paying attention – well, they are. They hear more than we think they do, and they understand more than we adults often give them credit for. And this is the stuff, sometimes, of playground conversations.

This week, it just feels like writing about the snowy woods or the busy holiday break just passed or the joys and struggles of raising almost-teenagers is a bit like ignoring the many elephants in the room. And yet it is that ordinariness – getting the kids up and out of the house in the mornings, meeting work deadlines, driving the Mom Uber – that keeps us moving forward.

Somedays the weight of the world is heavy, no matter how little of it each of us is charged with carrying. It is hard, on those days, to know what to do or say or even feel.

And so I carry on, as people have forever, with the day-to-day. I go into those snowy woods with the dog. I ski and write and watch the kids play in the snow. I help with homework (when I can) and figure out what to make for dinner. I snuggle with the animals and love the kids and keep looking up at that starry sky. And all the while, Normal keeps shifting. 

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the January 10, 2020 issue of the Littleton Record.

What's cooking on Facebook?

I was a social media skeptic for a long time. I figured I was in touch with everyone I need to be in touch with, and I didn’t have time for more Internet distraction.

Alas, I eventually caved and created a Facebook account. Along with finding plenty of old friends there, and several people I hadn’t even realized I missed, I’ve also made new connections that are sometimes purely social and sometimes work-related. Yes, I actually conduct work through Facebook, from posting links to copy I’ve written for various businesses to tracking down people I’d like to interview for stories I’m writing.

 

As anyone who spends even a smidgen of time navigating social media knows, Facebook and Pinterest and the rest can be one great big time suck. It’s so easy to be distracted by videos of cute puppies, or decorating ideas, or the latest political baloney those certain friends can’t help but share – without actually fact-checking the source first.

But social media has its benefits, too. For me, as a writer, the great big world of social media allows me to share my work with a larger – or at least different – audience than it otherwise might attract. It’s also a place to build my network of sources, which is especially helpful when my subject matter ranges from luna moths and hiking to Christmas trees, chamber music, and staying sane while raising kids.

A few weeks back I used Facebook to track down someone I wanted to interview for a story I’m writing for a ski magazine. We’d never met, but I had his name and a few basic bits of information, and he was easy to find on Facebook. Sent a message, got a response, and set up the interview with a few key strokes. Beautiful.

Turns out my interview subject and I had a few shared connections, or connections-once-removed. He used to ski race with a guy I used to coach with, and he’s also friends with the son of my former boss. Small (virtual) world. I used Facebook to set up two other interviews with strangers for that story, too. So, along with the given distractions of the social media world, I also got some work done that day, via Facebook.

Earlier this week, while sitting home with a sick child and grappling with the new realization that I’d be without a stove and oven for an entire week, I put a post on Facebook about my dilemma. Within minutes I had meal ideas ranging from pancakes or quesadillas on the electric griddle to crock pot chicken and pizza on the grill. One friend offered the loan of a toaster oven, another said I was welcome to use her kitchen, and my sister-in-law invited us for dinner.

The most entertaining suggestion came from a former local town official, with whom I used to speak just about every day when I worked as a newspaper reporter. I haven’t seen or spoken with him in years, other than on Facebook. He shared a link to an NPR piece titled “Coffee Maker Cooking: Brew Up Your Next Dinner.” (Check out the article here.) I don’t think I could bring myself to place a piece of salmon with ginger and garlic into my coffee pot, while steaming broccoli and cauliflower in the basket. But it was an interesting read.

So, beyond pure distracted amusement and work-related contacts, social media this week provided me with useful information, along with the whimsical meal musings of friends. Where else can you get dinner ideas from people from your past and present, down the road and across the country, new friends and childhood buddies, work colleagues and fellow preschool moms, even the local police chief? That is the wild and wacky web social media weaves.

One of the responders to my post, a woman I went to high school with half a lifetime ago, suggested I check out Pinterest for more ideas. I’m still holding out on that one. I don’t Tweet either (at least not yet), so you won’t find any hashtags in my posts. But if you’re reading this (or any of my other stuff) online and want to pass it along, by all means, click the share button!

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog: Writings From A Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the March 28, 2014 edition of the Littleton Record.