Santa Claus Coming from A-Town

I’ve been neglecting this blog in favor of the baby (good choice, right?), but since she’s asleep and the other kids are happily occupied, I am sitting down to write in the same way I started Life in A-Town: A Saturday morning, a cup of coffee, and no idea what I’m going to say.

Today is Charles W. Howard Day in A-Town, a celebration of the original Santa Claus School and its founder, a native son. It’s also Homecoming at my alma mater 30 miles away. The Waters Family took a “divide and conquer” approach to this dilemma: Will and Vi went to the college, specifically to run the annual 5k race held in memory of one of our classmates. Ben, Pearl, Lia and I dressed up in Christmas-y clothes and strolled up the street for the Santa festivities, which turned out to be a bit boring for the kids, but fun for me. Stuff like that makes me feel all fuzzy about our little village, and reinforces my doubts that I could ever leave for good. Providentially, I married a man with an even greater aversion to moving than my own, and whose affection for A-Town also runs deep and wide.

Today is also my mother-in-law’s birthday. (Happy Birthday, Mom—across the miles.) I often see sweet little houses here and wonder if she could ever be persuaded to move. Maybe someday, but I suspect she feels as strongly about her roots as I do about mine—possibly stronger, since she’s had a few more years to grow them.

Lately I’ve been thinking (again) about revealing the identity of A-Town in this blog (more blatantly than I have in the past … even in this very post, there’s an embedded give-away). Part of me thinks, “Who really cares, one way or the other?” Part of me thinks, “No—continue to protect your young family’s privacy.” But then I wonder if the blog might be more meaningful to more people (translate: more widely read) if it were, more decidedly, an A-Town blog. (And ultimately, wouldn’t it be great if someone wanted to pay me to write it? How much do people make when they “Monetize” with Google Ads anyhow?)

I recently watched the movie Julie and Julia, in which “Julie” cooked and blogged her way through “Julia (Child)’s” Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I relate to Julie, the frustrated writer (but not so much to Julie, the lover of cooking). Do I want to write simply for the enjoyment of it? Yes, but that’s not all. I want my writing to make a difference to someone other than myself. I also see the appeal (for writer and readers alike) of a blog like Julie’s, with a goal and a deadline. I tend to be a “go with the flow” kind of gal (except for some things, like recycling at the office—ask my co-workers). Goals and deadlines are for Type A’s, of which I am not one. But I do long for some structure in my life—certainly more than I’ve had these past 9 weeks, since Lia’s arrival. Maybe my return to part-time work in 9 days will scratch that itch, and I can go on blathering aimlessly here on this amorphous sliver of the blogosphere.

We shall see… (Leave it to me to remain “undecided.”)