Happy family

Posts are getting fewer and further between. While this is partially due to sleep deprivation and Corrie's monopolizing the family computer for work, there's something else going on as well. It comes down to the opening line of Anna Karenina:

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

I fear that currently we're suffering from that bane of all creative endeavors, contentedness.

Back when I used to travel more, introductory conversations with other wanderers followed a fairly regular pattern. After some mandatory small talk we'd dive into trading horror stories. "So you missed a connection and ended up in Yugoslavia? That reminds me of the time I had to sleep on the sidewalk in Calcutta." The one-upsmanship was pretty blatant, but made for some great stories. Nobody would ever talk about the things that went right though. Never would you hear stories about the transcendent sunsets from an Alpine hut, or the subtle color schemes of a Chagall stained glass window. Gruesome, scary, and preferably tragic was what the audience wanted. Scars preferred.

Before Mia was born, we had a well of anticipation and anxiety to draw from. I had to stop myself from posting more than three times a day. Since then however, that necessary tension has faded away. We're happy these days, sleepless nights and screaming child notwithstanding, and happiness, while preferable to nail-biting fear, kills the muse.

We'll try to keep things lively on this end, let our loyal fan base in on all the milestones, but I just can't bring myself to post endlessly on the infinite varieties of poo we've seen, or the Pentecostal tongues she shouts in her sleep. It just seems petty next to the joy I get from holding her in one arm while I type this out one-handed.

Until then we'll just be wallowing in our dull, un-original happiness.