A month ago I was visited with frustration and discomfort.

Dave was neck deep following inspiring leads and sparks of insight, and I was wallowing… wanting to be a writer but unwilling to take the leap that would make me so.

And then I wrestled with the concept of authenticity, that beautiful idea that we are all uniquely positioned to tell stories of profound meaning and engage creatively with the world around us in distinctive ways and that notions of scarcity and rivalry are a facade.

I’ve started writing a novel. It may never see the light of day, and that is more than acceptable to me, but the fact that I get to sit at a screen by night, crafting characters, conversations and plot twists is (at the very least) an exciting diversion from the more mundane daily realities of keeping small children alive.

I’ve also (re)joined Twitter. My first foray was a little overwhelming and I didn’t really grasp the concept, but this time I’m relishing connecting with fellow writers and bloggers… and being able to communicate resonance with a piece directly to the author still makes me shake my head in wonder at this networked universe.

It doesn’t hurt that Dave is on school holidays, which results in the carving out of additional time for (sanity-saving) creative endeavours. We try to avoid the subtle (and not so subtle) resentment that occurs when both parties feel as if they deserve a break and defer to the other to ‘parent’. We get it right about three quarters of the time.

We had high hopes of attempting ‘Geocaching’ with the boys this holidays, but after a failed outing we stumbled instead upon a world of portals linked to Google Maps in Ingress. Our first mission was to capture the Frog Council down by the lake in our estate. Eli and Hudson kept lookout for those in the Enlightenment faction that might thwart our attempts and we took that portal for the Resistance! On our phones, that is.

Ever since then I may have become a little addicted to the game, once yelling at Dave to stop driving in the middle of the road once because there was a portal nearby that I wanted to hack. On a detour to Primary Park in Berwick so that I could jump out of the car and capture a diminishing portal there were recurrent groans from the backseat. “Oh man! Not another portal!” Turns out this has become ‘Mummy’s game’… Oh well.

As we were collapsing onto the pillows a few evenings back, I blurted to Dave, “Do you ever just feel as if there are so many enticing things to do and there just isn’t enough time to do them in?” Dave: “All the time.”

As for the kids, apart from the daily frustrations of having to sort out who did what to whom and who had that toy in their hand first, there are glimmers of magic in each of them. Eli is managing his emotions with finesse (most of the time) and displaying incredible empathy both in response to us and to characters in distress. He takes Hudson under his wing when we are out, half-guiding/half-pulling him to wait in queues, out of fights with other kids and into games on the playground. Hudson is taking his role as big brother to Ivy very seriously, leaning in with his eyes to the ceiling and a half-grin on his face, saying ‘Girl!’ whenever she does something cheeky. He has found his temper and his independence and is very keen to do things his way. I suspect this will be a good quality… when we get past the battle stage! Ivy is cheeky, charming, determined, loving and hilarious. She seriously tries to bat her eyelids when you tell her off, usually standing on the couch, having just bopped Hudson on the head a number of times.

Life seems to be a series of flowing and ebbing, of inspiration and lulls, of anticipation and waiting. I’m firmly in the former camp at this present moment and loving it. Particularly in light of the uneasy grip that the discomfort of not pursuing my passions recently had over me. Sometimes it turns out the obvious thing to do is to be who you were designed to be. Who knew?

Are you feeling inspired or stumped at the moment? What is it that you wish you could do if you just had the (time/energy/resources) for it?