I am staring at a literal blank page here.  As in paper.  This entry is important enough to me that I’m drafting it…and important enough that I don’t even know where to begin.  Ah, well.

A new perspective

I can’t remember my exact motivation for starting this blog.  Establishing myself professionally?  Preparing for one day becoming a capital-w Writer?  Maybe if I had written a manifesto…  But!  What I can tell is that my overall focus has changed.  Of course I still want to write about books and music, but I’m reframing it.

This is now a family blog.  Yes, I’m that person.  The person who realized that, since the time commitment and pressures of my career-oriented graduate schooling have ended, my job is actually much less important than my family.

The precursors

My memory is unenviable at best.  I’d venture to say it’s bad.  Somewhat recently, Geraldine asked what her first word was.  I have no clue.  This may have something to do with the fact that most of her early “words” were just initial consonant sounds, so “buh” might be ball, or balloon, or bottle.  My youngest brother thought we were completely insane, but we could usually figure out the word by context.

I do know that the first word she read aloud was “pizza.”  It was from a sign we passed while driving, one that had no picture, so we knew it was genuine sight recognition.  She also cut her first tooth on a pizza crust.  If you’re sensing a family trend here, you’re absolutely right.

I don’t know Rhys’s first word either, but I know she can read (i.e., recognize) a few words now.  The first word I saw her read was “no.”  She was so proud.  I immediately taught her “yes” for balance, as well as “on” by flipping the capitalized “no” over, and I know she has a handful of other words she can recognize.

What that has to do with anything

I’m too spatially inept for scrapbooking (my wedding album is proof of that), plus it’s a pain in the tuches, but I got to thinking:  Couldn’t the blog serve as a family album of sorts?  This line of reasoning dates back to May, when I posted about our family outing to the Children’s Museum of NH, and continued in June, when I posted about the girls’ year-end evaluations.  It’s blossomed from there.  And now that we have a new camera…watch out.

The new name

ayuddha.net became a troubling blog name, because (a) its meaning is too insider, and (b) it pained me to see it misspelled (“h” before the “a,” people).  Plus it’s fixated on a specific value—peace—that doesn’t reflect the breadth of what I want this project to be.  So I gave it some thought, and came up with a key aspect of my life philosophy that I not only dream of the girls inheriting, but that they are capable of picking up on, even while they are this young:  Irreverence.

Thus, ayuddha.net is now the Art of Irreverence:  a family album of books, music, outings, and more.

Irreverence is an art

I’m not looking to teach the girls to be disrespectful.  Rather, I want to share my opinion that nothing is sacred.  It is an art to subvert with subtlety, to poke fun without causing offense.  Clearly this is not something that can be taught directly, but I do want to arm them with the critical thinking skills they need to question what others hold sacred and form their own opinions.  I also want to model my (usually benign) brand of irreverence at every opportunity, should they one day wish to follow in my footsteps.

I’m not looking to raise small versions of myself, though.  Really.  I’m trying my best not to be too heavy-handed in their upbringing.  It’s been a major effort to take a step back, and I’m far from what you’d call a detached parent, I think…I hope…but so far, so good with the results.  I set the best example I can manage, then set them loose the world to gather input, to test hypotheses and limits, to stumble, and to pick themselves up again.

Inside joke

I’ve had blogs before.  No one really knew about them, and usually after a few months I’d get bored and completely redesign/reinvent them.  One was called Front Lawn Blasphemy.  Another was called Whitewash:  Noun or Transitive Verb?  A third was oh-so-cleverly named Front Lawn Blasphemy…with a Touch of Whitewash.  So, my little inside joke with, um, myself…is that in the most negative sense, when you whitewash blasphemy, you get irreverence.  Ha.

What to expect from this blog

• reviews of books and music, and sometimes other media, with an emphasis on what we’re enjoying as a family
• posts about outings to shows, museums, parks, and wherever else we venture—typically with photographic evidence
• posts about family milestones and other album-worthy items of interest
• snippets of dialog that amuse me
• occasional posts from the perspective of an imperfect, skeptical, nonreligious, unpredictable, seat-of-her-pants parent

What not to expect from this blog

Advertisements, blatant promotional posts, or inauthenticity.  See my new review policy for more info.

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