EDITORIAL
Changing the Equation

Valerie Weaver-Zercher

Ican’t remember who said that the only thing constant in life is change, but the person must have been talking about me. In the past year I’ve moved from Pennsylvania to Kentucky and back, from stay-at-home parent to teacher and back, and gotten pregnant with our third child (oh, and we just bought a house and will move again within the year). Don’t even ask how many jobs I held during my 20s or how many times I switched majors in college.

So it’s not surprising to anyone who knows me that I’ve decided to make one more change in my life this fall: to end formal involvement with DreamSeeker Magazine as columnist and assistant editor. As with most decisions, it was anything but simple and quick. I’ve found fulfillment and meaning in my work with DSM, and I’ve been honored to share these pages with the other writers published here. But I’ve also found my time for writing waning with the birth of each child, and expect it will be the same when child number three arrives.

Although I’ll miss the discipline of a DSM deadline that has forced me to sit at my desk when I have a free moment, I also look forward to working on writing projects that are more open-ended, more expansive, and which may take years to grow. Also, as a person who pathologically overcommits herself, I’m rolling back several other commitments so that the few minutes each day that I’m not caring for children are truly mine.

Even while the feminist in me suggests that I’m a little crazy for giving up the one thing I do that most closely resembles a job, I look forward to the gifts that these child-rearing years have to teach me. Like not classifying the success of each day by how many items I cross off my to-do list. Like not trusting that deadly capitalist equation of education plus position times salary equals self-worth. Like learning, instead, to measure life with variables such as finding joy in the mundane, creating sacred times for children, losing my life to truly find it.

Most days, to be honest, I can’t wait to return to “the real world” of paid work that isn’t squeezed into the hour between the kids’ bedtime and my own. And I’ll continue as an editorial consultant for Cascadia Publishing House, which produces DSM.

Otherwise, this fall I’ll mostly be hanging around with my children, watching the leaves—and the children themselves—change. And trying to learn some new equations.
—Valerie Weaver-Zercher

She helped shape DSM from the start, through her network of writer friends, her pithy columns, and the editorial suggestions that helped polish each issue. Her replacement is in the wings, but that’s agenda for next issue. Here let this be clearly said: Special thanks, Valerie! You’ll be much missed. Blessings as your journey continues.
—Michael A. King