BECAUSE

Yesterday, I jokingly said I would invent the television show "NO EXCUSES" for writers who can't find the time or energy to write, make everyone live with me (or, more specifically, Demon Baby and three other kids) for a day, and see that it IS possible to write no matter what, and then they'd go back to their relatively sane lives and they would suddenly find the time and inspiration to write. I was only half-kidding.

Sometimes I wonder if I sound like I am complaining on my blog. I'm not. Once in a while, like everyone, when I haven't slept through the night in four or five days (like this week). When the laundry has piled up and Demon Baby has decided he is a scientist and wants to conducts "experiments" (like yesterday--do you know that if you add copious amounts of maple syrup to orange juice, the orange juice takes on a decidedly eerie color and texture--and gets--his word--"spooky"?). When I am tired and pressed against a deadline, I can feel like complaining. BUT, really, most of this blog, whether the tone comes out all the time or not, is really just a rolling of my eyes at the universe, laughing at the absurdity thing. Because in the end, you just write.

Last night, I made meatballs from scratch, fed my kids, drove to church for a three-hour meeting (VERY exciting . . . I am planning a diaper drive--food stamps don't cover diapers, you know; coat drive for kids in the cold weather; and Christmas Mother toy drive . . . THREE social ministry events in four months. Very cool.), and still had to come home at 9:30 p.m. and WRITE. And on the way home, in the dark, Demon Baby looked out the window and asked, out of the blue, "MOM? I have an IMPORTANT QUESTION."

"What's that?"

"WHY DO DUCKS POOP?" (Note, I felt like I had fallen through a portal and landed on Ellen's blog.)

I said what all tired parents say. "Because."

He said what all smart little kids say.

"But why because?"

So I explained how pretty much every creature that EATS must then . . . well, you know the biology. This answer he was satisfied with.

But the FIRST answer is my no excuses answer. You write BECAUSE. You don't need some lofty reason. Some "I would perish without writing." Some "I write to get my stories down on paper." Because when you have all that, it's easy to have days when you don't FEEL like it, when you're too tired. When you don't have a story dying to be put down on paper. You write BECAUSE.

I don't get to pick when I mother. I mother 24/7. And in this house? I DO mean 24/7. I mother because I love my children. But I mother BECAUSE. Not because why. Not for some "I find my purpose through mothering." I mother because I birthed four children, love them, and they need mothering. Because. I have the lofty reasons. I do. I have expounded on them here. But there are days when I want to mother about as much as I want to walk through duck poop. I mother because.

Those three social ministry drives I want to do? Diapers . . . coats for kids who can't afford them . . . Christmas gifts for kids and seniors who otherwise might not be able to afford them? That is a great goal. But don't get me wrong. After six weeks of a diaper drive, coordinating it, driving the diapers to various homeless shelters and food banks, STARTING a new drive for coats . . . there WILL be days when I want to bitch that I am too tired to do it. But I do it because. No excuses. No "I'm too busy." Because it everyone bitched like that, no one would help.

Just like if everyone was too tired to write . . . no books would get written.

No excuses.

Do it because.

Duck poop or not. Lofty reasons or not. Just BECAUSE.

Thoughts?