Lakshmi Bertram

I don’t understand how the hardest thing for me to be…is me.

All other definitions come easily to me, mother, wife, daughter, friend. These I know and have been successful at being for years. My own me, deeply hidden in the recesses, cringes in fear at the light of day. She hid herself from view, not sure if this world was safe enough. And with great zeal and creativity, created other hers. And lived as them. Now, I want out. To live my life in a straight line. To say, not what you want me to say, not what experience has taught me you want to hear. But to speak the words that rush, that barrel up from the bottom. The truth of me. I slide easily around inside myself, ducking behind corners, falling into manufactured selves. Out of fear, for safety, because it is easier and what I’m used to. But every now and then these days, I feel me, stepping out and shaking the water from my fur, blowing in the morning air. Surveying this fair landscape. For whole moments, I leave the shallows of my pond and walk naked as I am.

I don’t get out much. It’s a disadvantage of living in the middle of nowhere and raising a large family among the hills and trees. I wouldn’t trade this wild, secluded way of living, the leaves that rustle outside my window, the raccoons who come to eat cat food off my back deck. But the world is wide and wondrous. I long to know the scent of unfamiliar spices, the lay of a different land, the foreign hum of people chatting about their daily lives in a language I can’t understand. I may never get to leave my house in the gully and see everything I want to see. I may never get to talk to a woman in New Delhi about what it is like raising a child in her land. I cannot help wanting to know.

I have started this blog to share my life as an American living in Virginia. I will post the funny, quirky things that happen as I wander through motherhood, housewife-hood, and now as a career-mom. I feel a need to share my stories, to give you a glimpse of the world as I see it. I also want to see yours, the color of your day, the mood of your morning ritual. My hope is this will become a place where you can tell me the little things, the color of your coffee cup, the view from your bedroom window, but also the deep life stuff, difficult things you are dealing with, challenges you face, dreams you have that you still hope will come true.

I hope you will join me in this sharing and exploration. I look forward to reading about even the seemingly insignificant, whatever the world has shown to you that you would like to show to others, whatever gives a glimpse of what it is like to be you, living your life, in your world, in your “view over here.”

Peace and Blessings
La