wsm blog how to write about past and stay in the now

The name Woman Seeking Mother came to mind with the idea for the ad.  I am woman (a female being) seeking (to track down, trace, to go to find, search for, look for, to go to, to resort to, to try to get or find out by asking or searching, to request, to bend one's efforts toward, aim at pursue, to try, attempt, to explore, to look for someone or something) mother (that which is the origin of something or nurturing in the manner of a mother; to look after or care for as a mother does; a woman who has born a child, especially as she is related to her child).  What has surprised me is just how much the term seeking has suited my quest.

This journey has become an exploration not only of the potential for a substitute mother or mothers in the world for me, the original impetus of Woman Seeking Mother, but a much broader search.  I have traced my own mother through searching and asking and exploring my past.  These strands are more in line with Woman Seeking My Mother.  I have revealed and described my past efforts and continued efforts toward motherhood in what I would call Woman Seeking Motherhood.  I write about my pursuits to find my own way of mothering my child which could be Woman As Mother or perhaps Woman Seeking My Motherhood.  These are all facets of a kaleidoscope of motherhood in all its guises and applications to my life.  Co-parenting through a health crisis has recently created Woman Seeking Stability, though I'm not sure this is the name I'll settle on.  This continues to evolve with me.

The search is all of these pieces.  The ad, my childhood, my motherhood, and what is breaking forward for me now.  

  

I belong right here.  Would a mother solve the problem?  This mother search is solving the problem.  It was not just one woman, though i would welcome this.  It was opening a door to my past, myself, becoming a mother, trying to be in a relationship like a daughter--all of it.  

A friend and I recently discussed the content of my blog and she pointed out that much of what I am writing about in terms of my mother search is what has happened in the past.  It has brought me to think of how to best allow that narrative to unfold while still allowing myself to be focused on the now.  Ideally I would have been blogging when I placed the ad and would have documented the exchanges between the mothers and myself.  But I wasn't.  I still want that content to unfold in a way that really shows the impact of this quest as it happened.  But I also need to show where I am right now in reaction to the arc of that story.  

As the pieces turn in my mind, I unfold them in the blog. Sometimes I wish that I had sat down and decided upon the flow and wonder what is forgotten in passing as I move so quickly through the episodes.  They are strewn together at times without order or design.  

When I began the blog last Mother's Day, I had just given birth and I had a woman in my life, Janet, whom I had hired to help me get my footing as a new mom.  I was under no delusions.  I knew that I was hiring myself a mother.  What I didn't know was how important that experience would ultimately be for me and what it would yield.  The circle of the ad, the birth of my child, to now.

I can say now that I have been fortified by the experience but that it is not over.  I am still on this path and there is more to come.  I stand and look into the view into the future andknow that there is more to come.  My ability to write about my past as a chronicler with no bitterness is a result of what the search yielded.  I can look back without blinking.  I am grateful for this focus.  To be able to move through this time without a need to subdue the past.  I can surrender to it and break free of it.  I believe it is actually possible.