A year ago, I started an art residency in motherhood (ARIM), prompted by the artist's Lenka Clayton's ARIM. I committed to four weeks at the time, but have never really stopped using M's fickle naptime as my time to write and rewrite. Exactly a year later, I am attending a writer's conference in another state away from M for 12 days.
Initially, the decision was easy for me to make. Once I had an acceptance and secured the practical logistics of M's care, it seemed foolish to say no. C is taking time off from work to be with her and a small village of family members are coming at various points to take care of her. It is a gift for me that I have family who want to help, and it is also a gift for M that she can spend time with them.
This is not to say as the day gets close to my departure later this month, that I feel calm and easy about going. I am anxious and guilty about leaving M for that long of a time. She's still so young - not even two. She will miss me. Like many parents, I have thought irrational thoughts - will I do her irreparable psychological damage by leaving her? Will I cause her pain? I will miss her. At the same time, I am excited and looking forward to being in a community of writers again. I can't wait to be in a classroom again learning. I can't wait to sit still and listen to famous writer so and so lecture on craft while eating a peach.
How to reconcile these two - mother-writer, writer-mother?
While it's true, I have written more (the good and fodder), since I gave birth to M, it's not been without sacrifice of time spent otherwise, or money I could have earned doing something else. Since M was born, how many author readings have I not been able to attend? How much time have I really had to be present in a piece of writing - or to think about my aspirations for larger writing projects? How much time have I had to dream? How much time have I had to sit still and meditate on writing, a writer's life, and other artistic mediums that can invigorate craft and content? How much time have I spent talking with another writer about their project and listening to them as they work through a tricky spot?
It is a luxury, I want to say! And that is true. It is a privilege to leave M and know she is well taken care of. It is a privilege to attend this conference. It is privilege to be able to take care of her at home and it is a privilege to use nap times as writing time. But it is also true that these are choices and all choices have consequences. I think I know what saying no would look like. As the mother of a young child, I am about to learn what saying yes is like.
I came across a passage this week from the excellently curated website, Brainpickings by Maria Popova. She quoted the writer Jeannette Williamson, who explored the question of how art transforms us in a talk given at the 2010 Edinborough Book Festival. As someone who believes in the inherent value of the creative life of the mind, Willamson's words resonated with me and have provided some further comfort as I prepare to leave.
"Life has an inside as well as an outside, and at the present, the outside of life is very well catered for, and the inside of life not at all…"
We do have an an inner life, and that inner life needs to have respect and needs to have some nourishment for itself. And that’s why art can never be a luxury — because, if it is, being human is a luxury; being who we actually are is a luxury. Life can’t be about utility — it has also to be about emotion, it has to be about imagination, it has to be about things for their own sake, so that this journey of ours makes sense to us and is not simply something that we’re rather fretfully trying to get through another day, another week, another month — that pressure that we so often feel…"
I started this blog for accountability and I have continued to use this blog off and on to think through the journey of being both writer and mother. I am coming to understand that it is a continuous journey, a journey I make to change my mindset about what it means to be both - not as conflicting push/pull forces in the external/internal worlds I inhabit, but in concert with one another. When so much focus is on the demands and conflicts of the external world, I feel the need to intentionally carve the space and time for the internal one — the one in the end I will have spent the most time with and perhaps the one M will remember most.
Initially, the decision was easy for me to make. Once I had an acceptance and secured the practical logistics of M's care, it seemed foolish to say no. C is taking time off from work to be with her and a small village of family members are coming at various points to take care of her. It is a gift for me that I have family who want to help, and it is also a gift for M that she can spend time with them.
This is not to say as the day gets close to my departure later this month, that I feel calm and easy about going. I am anxious and guilty about leaving M for that long of a time. She's still so young - not even two. She will miss me. Like many parents, I have thought irrational thoughts - will I do her irreparable psychological damage by leaving her? Will I cause her pain? I will miss her. At the same time, I am excited and looking forward to being in a community of writers again. I can't wait to be in a classroom again learning. I can't wait to sit still and listen to famous writer so and so lecture on craft while eating a peach.
How to reconcile these two - mother-writer, writer-mother?
While it's true, I have written more (the good and fodder), since I gave birth to M, it's not been without sacrifice of time spent otherwise, or money I could have earned doing something else. Since M was born, how many author readings have I not been able to attend? How much time have I really had to be present in a piece of writing - or to think about my aspirations for larger writing projects? How much time have I had to dream? How much time have I had to sit still and meditate on writing, a writer's life, and other artistic mediums that can invigorate craft and content? How much time have I spent talking with another writer about their project and listening to them as they work through a tricky spot?
It is a luxury, I want to say! And that is true. It is a privilege to leave M and know she is well taken care of. It is a privilege to attend this conference. It is privilege to be able to take care of her at home and it is a privilege to use nap times as writing time. But it is also true that these are choices and all choices have consequences. I think I know what saying no would look like. As the mother of a young child, I am about to learn what saying yes is like.
I came across a passage this week from the excellently curated website, Brainpickings by Maria Popova. She quoted the writer Jeannette Williamson, who explored the question of how art transforms us in a talk given at the 2010 Edinborough Book Festival. As someone who believes in the inherent value of the creative life of the mind, Willamson's words resonated with me and have provided some further comfort as I prepare to leave.
"Life has an inside as well as an outside, and at the present, the outside of life is very well catered for, and the inside of life not at all…"
We do have an an inner life, and that inner life needs to have respect and needs to have some nourishment for itself. And that’s why art can never be a luxury — because, if it is, being human is a luxury; being who we actually are is a luxury. Life can’t be about utility — it has also to be about emotion, it has to be about imagination, it has to be about things for their own sake, so that this journey of ours makes sense to us and is not simply something that we’re rather fretfully trying to get through another day, another week, another month — that pressure that we so often feel…"
I started this blog for accountability and I have continued to use this blog off and on to think through the journey of being both writer and mother. I am coming to understand that it is a continuous journey, a journey I make to change my mindset about what it means to be both - not as conflicting push/pull forces in the external/internal worlds I inhabit, but in concert with one another. When so much focus is on the demands and conflicts of the external world, I feel the need to intentionally carve the space and time for the internal one — the one in the end I will have spent the most time with and perhaps the one M will remember most.
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