The Other SouleMama

Despite the fact that school is officially out for the summer, you have some homework to do. Please visit The Original SouleMama at: http://www.soulemama.com/. Come back to see me when you're done...




Amanda Blake Soule, author of both The Creative Family and Handmade Home is a resident of Maine, mother of three? four? knitter, seamstress, photographer, maker of homemade laundry powder, builder of fairy houses, and generally a woman the likes of which I am not. And, I absolutely adore her blog. Her snapshots of her home/studio/family life are a colorful and interesting collage of a life that cuts across the divide of homeschooled vs. public schooled, fairy-house building vs. Lego constructing. I am fascinated by her work, and the beauty she always seems to pull from each project or family outing. Although I'd like to say that I stumbled across her on my own, I can't. A friend of mine from college mentioned the SouleMama blog to me a few years back when she was Googling (pre-Facebook) to see where I may have landed in life. Sadly, I was unable to claim it as mine, but became a fan of this SouleMama who I was most definitely not.


The Original SouleMama, as I've come to think of her, has a keen sense of how to capture and portray all that is beautiful in life. But, being The Other SouleMama, I'm a touch skeptical. Where is the real Amanda Blake Soule Mama in all of this? Where are the meltdowns that don't make it into the blog? When it's 4:00 in the afternoon and her baby is tired out, does she ever throw down the needlepoint, lose her temper, curse the dirty diaper? Or is it really truly all ice cream and sandy baby feet? Is she just better than I am at the glass half-full thing? One thing is for sure, I know that when I blog I edit out moments that don't fit the picture because that's what you do when you write. You present a certain narrative.


So what is the narrative I'm trying to present? Honestly my world looks almost nothing like hers. (I'll admit to you that I'm a little jealous.) Of course, there are the fleeting moments of beauty while getting the kids ready for daycare/preschool/elementary school, or on the weekends in between laundry and groceries and more laundry. But homemade laundry powder? Really? For me the challenge is finding time to get to Target to buy a bottle of High Efficiency "Up and Up" brand detergent. For the love of god! I've got an Excel spreadsheet telling me where Child No. 1 is to go on what day, during which week of the summer (with, might I add, a per week cost calculated in the bottommost cell of the table!) To The Other SouleMama, this is a thing of beauty. All joking aside (actually, the Excel table really exists) the last time I actually made something was almost a full year ago. It was a small collage for a friend, and something I worked very hard to squeeze into my evening, much like this blog.


So what's a mother to do? This stay-at-home mama/working-outside-the-home mama distinction is reality. Whether at home or at work, I believe all mother's struggle with The Decision. What other decision is there to make? Come on folks, where is the part-time work with benefits? Where is the schedule with afternoons off so that your child too can participate in special after-school programs like chorus and art studio? The Decision weighs on us all heavily. We wonder, what is it the "right thing" to do? Is this what is "best" for my children? There are days when I am certain that my children are happy, my work is of value, and I am satisfied with my choices. Other days, the anger bubbles to the surface, and the "choices" appear to me as two closed doors to which I have lost the key. While I don't necessarily begrudge The Original SouleMama her beautiful knitted baby vests and homemade rompers in vintage fabrics, I would like just a peek or two into the messy sewing basket. Is her life really so, so composed?


While at work a few weeks ago, I was busy processing and logging papers into a database. As you can imagine, the work had my full and complete attention so much so that I started to eavesdrop on a conversation two temps were having a few cubes over. Temp #1 was informing Temp #2 that she was getting out of town, leaving for the big city to find a job, get a place to live. Temp #2 listened to her plans, smartly offering the correct amount of admiration for this move away from the hometown. Temp #1 proclaimed confidently, "There's just nothing here for me." When I got home that night, I told my husband the story of the temps, and how it made me chuckle inside to hear this young girl desperate to head out into the world, to find something different, to make a move. It made me chuckle because I could relate to her story, having fled the Midwest at 22 for similar reasons. My husband asked me, "So, knowing what you know today, what advice would you give to her?" Without hesitation, I said, "No matter where you go, you are still there."


The same holds true for mothering. I will never have a blog like the SouleMama blog. I grew up eating ground beef-a-la-Sloppy-Joes, and thinking the beach was something you looked at through a car window. I've gone hiking once in my life (in Arizona; it was really hot) and have never once set foot in a kayak. I can crochet a long, narrow, crooked scarf that no one would ever want to wear. And although I've never built a fairy house, when I was little my sister and I would float dried leaves in the rainwater pooling in the gutters that lined the sidewalks. It was magical to my three-year old self.


If I've learned anything from my adventure out into the world at age 22, or from mothering each of my children as they chart their course it is this: Seek beauty. Truth is hidden in the details. Pay attention at all costs.


[Hats off to The Original SouleMama on this Wednesday evening, soon-to-be Thursday morning. Thanks, for inspiring The Other SouleMama to create a blog of her own. Good Night, all.]