Edgy Mama

(I initially wrote this because one of the first things I told the bloggers in my class last weekend was to examine their motives for writing and blogging. I figured I’d better examine mine first. I know this will anger more of you–hell, the closer the election gets, the more hate mail I receive. BTW, NObamaDave, what’s your real e-mail address? Despite the consequences, I believe it’s my role as a writer to put it out there, so here goes…)

I write because my thoughts emerge sharper and clearer through my fingertips than from my mouth.

Writing is how I make sense of the world. Writing is how I examine, explore, and dissect what I don’t understand, what scares me, what confuses me, and what gives me joy. Writing is how I figure out what I really think and feel about things—from talking to my kids about sex to why yoga pants rock to surviving my kindergartner’s first day of school.

Although I would write regardless of who might be reading, I’m lucky to have an audience—you readers who come back week after week, for a laugh and the feeling that you’re not alone in your parenting challenges.

Yet, with an audience comes added responsibility. While my primary goal has been to give you a chance to giggle with me at the absurdity of raising kids, lately I’ve realized I also have a responsibility to tell the truth as I see it, even when that truth’s not funny. I also have the responsibility to offer you words that sometimes transcend—words that create a picture, provide an insight or make you think.

Thus, while I’m happy to oblige with my weekly dramas, I’ve been more serious than usual over the past month. How can I regale you with tales of  baby poop and toddler tantrums when the financial world is crashing, people are out of work and out of money, and a powerful woman is irresponsibly using the word “terrorist” against a fellow American? 

Therefore, I’ve branched into writing a bit about politics and the world outside my insular North Asheville existence, despite knowing that these subjects can be veritable Afghani minefields.

I recognize that these words can make readers angry. That’s difficult for me. I know how words can hurt—just look at the rhetoric that’s dragging the current Presidential campaign into the swamplands. But I’m not here to keep my mouth shut. Well, maybe my mouth, but not my fingertips. 

So let me say right here and right now whom I think will be best for our country. I think Barack Obama has the better chance of rescuing us from the tar pit we’re sliding into than John McCain. Yes, it’ll take time, it will take sacrifices, but that’s ok with me. I’m more than willing to pay now if my kids can have a future with fewer of the debilitating fears I currently harbor about the environment, the stock market, home values, and our future.

So, I, Edgy Mama, am endorsing Barack Obama for President of the United States. While I’m at it, I’d like to endorse Kay Hagen and Heath Shuler for U.S. Senate, Holly Jones for Buncombe County Commissioner, locally-grown food, and every microbrewery in Western North Carolina.

That’s why I write. So I can put down, right here, what I’m feeling and thinking. I can tell the world—or at least, those of you who’ve read this far–whom I believe should be the next President of the U.S.

Thank you, readers, for giving me this platform, this opportunity, and for reading this far.

I also want to thank my kids, because they’ve initiated and even forced my transition from writing from my head to writing from my heart. They also, at the moment, continue to think it’s cool that Mom writes about them.

Finally, I’d like to thank Steve Almond, who has inspired me anew to put it out there and damn the torpedoes, and George Orwell, for this title and never-ending inspiration.

So, go Obama. Right now, my heart’s saying this is “why I write.”