1. Last night I read the first chapter of what I think is going to be a truly excellent book: "Gift From the Sea," by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (thanks to Diana for the recommendation). Bearing in mind that the book was written in 1955, I was completely struck by this quote:

"For today life in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication. It involves not only family demands, but community demands, national demands, international demands on the good citizen, through social and cultural pressures, through newspapers, magazines, radio programs, political drives, charitable appeals, and so on. My mind reels with it."

Ever-widening circles of contact and communication, huh? You know what I penciled in to the margin next to that line? "Blogs and Facebook!"

Those two internet delights of the modern age have definitely widened my circles of contact and communication. Here are a few examples:

2. I've been obsessively checking Facebook all day for updates on my friend from Maryland who is giving birth even as we speak (current update from her sister, which was posted 9 minutes ago as of this writing, is that she's at four centimeters. Go Amy!)

Even two years ago, I'd have had to wait for an e-mail or phone call after it was all over; maybe even a few weeks, until I'd get a baby announcement in the mail. Now I can follow the whole thing in nearly real-time, from all the way across the country.

3. Evie has a favorite blankie. She is deeply, deeply attached to Blankie. When she is crying, all she needs is a few minutes of burying her face in Blankie for a nuzzle with its softness and a big whiff of whatever magical sedative aroma apparently resides within its fibers. You know how she got this blankie? Because I won a blog contest and the blogger made this blanket especially for her and shipped it to her all the way from New Zealand. That's right. My kid's favorite blanket is from a woman I have never met who lives in New Zealand! The magic of the blog.

4. Another blog friend just moved to Germany. And immediately I left a comment on her blog telling her about my cousin who used to live in Germany, and was mentally listing all the other connections I have to Germany; my sister who just visited there, and her brother-in-law who lives there, and some more cousins who just spent the summer in Germany, and all the things I've heard about the best places to visit...and then I was like, "Holy cow! I've never been to Germany! How is it that I know this much about Germany?"

5. And while we're talking international, let's not forget that Eric and I traveled almost all the way to the equator last year for a visit with our dear friend Meg, who was at the time going to college in Grenada. Because of our connection of spending our college years together at Linfield, Eric and I got to take a totally sweet vacation in the Caribbean. And--small world even smaller--Meg is now going to school at OSU and living on our street. Amazing.

6. And speaking of Eric, through the power of the Internet and cell phones, when he is away on a trip I can take pictures of the kids on my cell phone and send them to him so he can see what we're doing during the day, even as it occurs; we can text or IM each other whenever we have a free minute; and at night the whole family can gather around the computer and talk to him, face-to-face (or, okay, video image to video image) with the built-in webcam on our computer. My kids just accept this. Oh, look, there's Daddy's face on the computer, let's talk to him now; without marveling at it even a bit. Children of the 21st century, to be sure.

7. I have lived my whole life in Oregon. Though I've been privileged to travel a little bit, I've never actually resided more than two hours from the town where I was born. I am deeply connected to this little patch of the Willamette Valley. Here on our one-block-long street, I not only know the names of my neighbors, I know the names of all their cats. As I walk my daughter to school, I can identify the familiar cars, coats, and umbrellas that we spot every day and tell you who each of them belongs to. When my daughters ran up ahead of me today, tired of matching their pace to their 1-year-old sister's toddling steps, a fellow kindergarten parent paused on his way home and stood there in the rain waiting until Evie and I caught up. "I'm keeping an eye on 'em for you," he said.

I am connected here.

And yet I also have connections in a spattering of spots around the world. I live a life both immediate and international; my world is both near and far. Finding a balance between maintaining faraway friendships without ignoring the tangible world, the near-and-dear people in my own family and community? That's a work in progress.


More quick takes here.