if you’re a parent, how do you balance your creative pursuits with raising your child(ren)? how do you stay present for them?
As a single mom of a 2 yr old and an 8 month old, I used to remind myself to just sit on the floor beside them. It made me stop cleaning ir cooking and make a connection
Even here on the far side of 60, some of us have to keep letting go of self-absorption. You’re ahead of the game. My grandkids are wonderful unwitting helpers in my ego-deflation process.
Agree. "Sure anyone can push past their own bullshit at age 60 when it’s all gone and behind them." Alex, you will find that 60 gets younger every year you're alive, and even at 61, I do find it hard to push past my own bullshit. It's not all gone and behind me. There is still so much ahead -- to do, to think, to feel, to write. Thank you for writing this piece. Look at all of us responding. That means you made us think, take stock, smile, whatever. It means you did something for the world.
I hope in a good way and BTW, you're a fantastic writer. Keep up the good work. You make me laugh/smile and very few writers do that. Plus, you never know the ripple effect that making people smile/laugh/cry will have in the world. You're making a difference not only for the reader but for however far that ripple goes.
Staying present with my kids is so top of mind for me, as I chase my pursuits. I finally got cast in a TV show and the day I was supposed to be on set my daughter was born. I didn’t act much after that, and have zero regrets.
Yet I write this as my older kid looms over me, waiting for me to make her lunch. But, I realize, to be present with them I need to be present with me. My creative pursuits is accessing pieces of myself that make me whole; that make me here. That leave a bit of my own legacy behind for them to pick up the pieces and analyze. They get insight into me I’ve never gotten with my parents.
My creative pursuits are a form of therapy. They’re a space for me to be authentic and honest and vulnerable. I don’t want them to have the Asian dad that stomps around and tells them they’re aren’t good enough. I want them to see me and see a person. A person who isn’t good enough theirselves, but gosh dang it I am trying.
So, sometimes this means writing with them on my lap, or sleeping next to me, or typing furiously into my phone while I ride the streetcar to daycare drop off. Then I put away my phone, pick them up, kiss them on the mfing nose and make sure they know we are here together. I am here and they are here.
And hopefully my writing leaves more clues and pictures and substance for them to hang onto who I am, and who we are.
Speaking as someone whose parents didn't and don't have real hobbies or creative pursuits, I wish they had. I would have learned more about them as separate human beings and I think they would feel more fulfilled, connected to others, and happy. Your kids are lucky to experience that in you.
1. Mostly, for the world I have taken care of people. I can’t accept I won’t do anything major. Somehow I always think I will. But I have already focused mostly on the other people. They are my main purpose.
I have been taking care of people all my life. Everyone always needed me, even before I had children. My siblings, my parents and my grandparents.
3. I am not good at balancing my work and my children at all. I had to get tenure, so I had to set my kids aside, and do my work. Or we could not eat. My kids don’t like it. I DO like it. I don’t have to remind myself to pay attention to them. They remind me. They need me every second. My son calls me and cries if I am not home. If I am at home, he wants me to be right there with him, engaging with him. He wants me every moment. So the issue where I have to realize that they are what matters hasn’t come up so much.
The inability to be alone and think and do work creates an internal conflict and turmoil for me. So I believe, to be present to my family, and not feel conflict, I turn that part off.
There is a type of learned helplessness in a way because I fear getting involved in my projects and the heartbreak of interruption. I have had so many times where I was involved in work, and something absolutely crazy happened and I had to put aside my work. Maybe because I have lost faith I will get to do them, I stay detached from my projects. My family of origin also involves a lot of disruption because their lives are always in turmoil. There’s a lot of pain and heartbreak in my family of origin. I am often waiting for the other shoe to drop and sometimes cannot settle my mind to think clearly because I am constantly worried.
In the midst of all this, there is a kind of relationship with myself I don’t get to have as much as I want. I only meet this self when I work creatively. When I am working creatively, this is when I truly become an independent self. It feels like I am a different person. If I have not been able to get away to work, and then I do, it is almost like meeting an old friend I haven’t seen in a long time. But it is my SELF. I am thinking ‘oh, hey, how have you been?’ It is buried under everything else. I have to go and dig it up.
When I am with my children, it is a different self--a self that is melded and blended with them. However, it’s funny because they know there is another part of my life that does not involve them. It is like I am cheating on them with my work. But I do not think I could be more attentive if I tried. They are always on my mind.
The self that sees the people I love as the most important thing is vastly more dominant than the self who wants to do great work. Nevertheless, the self who wants to do work lets out little squeaks of distress.
I accept that maybe I won’t get all my life projects done, that I won’t get realize these visions I have. Yet, it’s still a painful realization. Hilariously, I thought I WOULD be some version of Nick Cave when I grew up. I loved Nick Cave as a teenager. Sometimes it is as if I am two people. One is a writer and scholar and one is a mother. They somehow can’t both fit into the same life very well. They aren’t very much alike. The mother self is so all-consuming and shoves aside the writer self, or represses it, so it languishes. I chose two types of lives that both have consuming identities and take up vast amounts of time where the role I fill is so different.
Life is very strange. Things just come up. You cannot control or plan things. Every day is another moment of rolling with it, and then another day. The idea there should be some overarching structure is an illusion. It might be a good illusion because it has practical relevance moment to moment. it guides you. But overall, you are kicking the can down the road until the road runs out.
Several things you mentioned struck me, but I don’t know if I can convey my thoughts about them succinctly.
The relationship with your self where you only meet when you work creatively- to me, that was a realization moment.
For me, I tell my family that I’m selfish, that I need uninterrupted time to work, and then I put them on hold.
But for those times when nobody’s home, when there are no interruptions, I often do NOT work. I waste my time away. I only get motivated again when everyone is back home. Then I use the “work” line to escape into my own world again.
That’s awful, but there it is. We need to have the family around, otherwise we’d be lonely and uncreative but when we’re all together, the impulse to escape into “work” is strong.
It really is! But to write, you need time with yourself. We’re not machines. Eventually, the brain shifts into the right mode and the writing comes.
Is it so awful? it feels awful but aren’t we also people?
Is ‘I have to work’ a line? I actually have a job where I have to write. We also belong to ourselves. Saying ‘to escape into my own world again’ --is this like saying ‘everything I am is owed to someone. Realizing my own goals is cheating them of *me,* to which they are totally entitled.’
Yes, this is what it is to be a mother. Except --do I owe anything to myself? Why did I get a PhD? This is what I have started to think about, but it is only because of what happens to me if I have no self apart from other people.
The idea that I am divisible and everyone gets a piece of me but I do not get a piece of me--this is what I question. Because for me, there is punishment in not having time to work. I pay a price for it. It’s potentially a pretty high price.
Maybe I will see the point of Nick Cave’s ideas eventually. Maybe tragedy will strike and I will have awful regrets. But all I am trying to do right now is balance different things (that cannot actually be balanced very well).
Great! I kicked a rock to school. I feel all of this so much with 4 kids and there no routine, How is 1 mom and 1 dad supposed to manage life effectively? I’m always making progress. The rulebook I grew up on didn’t have any non-disciplinary outcomes. Life is not supposed to be a punishment. My kids start school next week and this year is unlike any past year, lots of learning and love. Going to take out the trash and color with my 6yo boss daughter
This is all so beautifully and richly expressed. I felt it viscerally. In my way, I feel this too: "In the midst of all this, there is a kind of relationship with myself I don’t get to have as much as I want. I only meet this self when I work creatively." I am single don't have kids but I am the caretaker/problem solver/manager of others at work and with my family. There are so many days I am too exhausted on all levels to write and so I write on the weekends. It feels like I'm holding my breath until then and I don't want to see or talk to anyone so I can be with my creative self.
I am a selfish piece of shit!!! I can’t get my essays done and I smile at no one!! I am newly married and terrified of the relief I’ll feel when I have a kid and no longer give a shit about my selfish self. Please advise.
This is beyond a bop, this is an anthem. (At least for me, the kid did help; I care way less about what a total POS I am now, just too busy plus it doesn’t seem material to her).
It's true; one of the weirder things about aging is: you know that you didn't know jack 20 years ago, in some key senses, and you didn't know the future or what anything would be "like"; but you are expected to plan and act in the present as though you won't feel exactly the same about yourself today in another 20 years!
I hope God likes how much I make him laugh, at least.
“Each life is precarious, and some of us understand it and some don’t.“ 🌳 I love this whole post. I read in a book by Thomas Moore this week that mothering is both tending and excruciation, and it made me pause. That’s it, I thought, the pain is baked in, it’s a natural part of the process. That feels relevant here to the needs of the self (discovery, tending, hand-holding, ie work) and the needs of belonging to the whole, which also tends you. It’s so complicated, so real. I 1000% believe that artists are tending the psychic soil, turning it like mealy worms. The problem is that our culture makes us believe our work has to count on some grand scale, but what really matters is that all the worms are toiling and tilling, doing their jobs for their own lives and keeping the soil healthy as a whole. I also am a big believer in something that Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes says, basically when you do not bring out the magic that is within you, it can destroy you (no pressure!!) I think about this sometimes (I don’t know if it’s Jungian first but she is a Jungian analyst), it’s my basic duty to use my creative gifts, and turning away from them means at the very least turning away from life, and at worst turning toward a kind of sickness, a denial of my own greater needs. This sounds maudlin but I also think it’s kind of true. If I want to keep my mind and heart healthy, creative work is part of those chores. I frequently think of it like brushing my teeth but for mental health. It’s weird because too much work can also harm your mental health, so it’s such a fine balance, but I believe just like the sun guides plants in their daily growth, your heart will guide you if you really listen to it. I also wonder if Wilder is more a part of your heart and your creative work than you realize, because in both are seeds of joy? End rant/lecture! 💞🫶🏽🌿🫀
Great essay thank you. My kids are 8 and 10 and raising them has changed me completely. I used to think that if the great work never happened then it was all for shit. A very self-centered view. My kids have helped me understand my small place in the world and that making small positive contributions to the world is what matters. Modeling loving behavior to the best of my ability has become a far more rewarding lifestyle than feverishly chasing some kind of recognition from the world. Thanks again, great piece.
This one time a fan told me something I said made her get on antidepressants and I figure that’s what I was put on this earth to do and so everything else is bonus time.
To #7: When I'm biting my tongue and not saying what I want to say to spare the feelings of others. I have what I call "Ally McBeal Moments" (if you've ever seen the show, you know what I'm talking about) I'm calm on the outside and talking like a normal person. But on the inside--the Ally McBeal Moment-I'm telling you how I really feel. Possibly letting you have it with both barrels blazing. That holding back words/shoving down feelings stems from a childhood stutter and lisp. :/ Got rid of the lisp. And the stutter, for the most part.
I'm totally seeing that Ally McBeal mental image of someone being thrown into a dumpster right now. That show was brilliant at conveying those moments!
According to my mother, I rebelled against coming into the world at all (and she will tell you so at nauseating length). What have I done for it? I continue to rebel against its expectations. Merrily. :)
I so loved this, Alex. Got the warm fuzzies here in Ohio reading this. Lots of great stuff in here. You made me want to go read Nick Cave's book. I have put his quote, 'It's got to be about love" in my pocket. Your question about writing - what does it matter in the long run - struck a chord. We all struggle with this balancing act of wanting desperately to connect with others, wanting to leave our DNA on our folding chairs and realizing at the same time we are so very small. I read your stuff for the warmth and humanity, silliness and love. You really had me going with the Koala Kourt.
I am just reading this now, days after it was posted, because I am on Family Vacation with spouse and boy. Which does not leave me much time alone or in contemplation or anything. But Alex my friend, you have asked Everything right here and while spouse and boy are downstairs playing ping-pong, I am having thoughts in response.
Today I was lost to myself at the top of a trail we hiked. There were waterfalls. My 16yo manchild played with pieces of birch bark, dropping each in and watching as it was caught in an eddy, swirled, maybe flowed further with the current to the next pool. I could have sat on my rock in the sun all day, just watching the simple joy and listening to the water rush. When I finally got up to leave --spouse and boy already skipped away-- I was surrounded by butterflies. Five or six dancing around me in the green sunlight. I ceased to exist as my usual self.
During the past week in the wilds of New Hampshire, our teenaged miracle has said on several occasions, “I am really enjoying spending time like this with both of you.” Not only has something gone terribly right-- I will also save up all those moments for when my boy is being a smarmy teen and taking it out on the nearest adult (generally me or spouse).
It’s funny: I thought I would be able to write more during this vacation, removed as I am from the stresses of everyday life. Nope. Does this mean I am undisciplined? Lacking talent / ability? Lazy? Afraid? All the same questions I have at home. Means nothing.
Having a life of the mind as a mother is so hard. Even when the child is not really a child anymore. Only when this boy is successfully launched into the world will I begun to feel less c
--less conflicted, I think. Now I try to hold each moment, whether it’s my boy beaming at me and spouse, or when I’ve crafted a sentence like a glassblower shaping it just so, or being enveloped in a butterfly dance. Not weighing one against the other, just accepting the gift.
Oh, and Nick Cave over Nick Cage. Any day. What a mensch.
if you’re a parent, how do you balance your creative pursuits with raising your child(ren)? how do you stay present for them?
As a single mom of a 2 yr old and an 8 month old, I used to remind myself to just sit on the floor beside them. It made me stop cleaning ir cooking and make a connection
Dang that’s good. It’s not hard to do it! Just takes a minute to forget about ur own dumb shit
I love this answer so much! I can think of a few times when I was a kid when I just wanted someone to sit on the floor with me. <3
+100000
Even here on the far side of 60, some of us have to keep letting go of self-absorption. You’re ahead of the game. My grandkids are wonderful unwitting helpers in my ego-deflation process.
Reading ur comment I realize it’s a forever game. Happy to be playing at all
Agree. "Sure anyone can push past their own bullshit at age 60 when it’s all gone and behind them." Alex, you will find that 60 gets younger every year you're alive, and even at 61, I do find it hard to push past my own bullshit. It's not all gone and behind me. There is still so much ahead -- to do, to think, to feel, to write. Thank you for writing this piece. Look at all of us responding. That means you made us think, take stock, smile, whatever. It means you did something for the world.
Ok what the heck ur comment made me cry thank u
I hope in a good way and BTW, you're a fantastic writer. Keep up the good work. You make me laugh/smile and very few writers do that. Plus, you never know the ripple effect that making people smile/laugh/cry will have in the world. You're making a difference not only for the reader but for however far that ripple goes.
Staying present with my kids is so top of mind for me, as I chase my pursuits. I finally got cast in a TV show and the day I was supposed to be on set my daughter was born. I didn’t act much after that, and have zero regrets.
Yet I write this as my older kid looms over me, waiting for me to make her lunch. But, I realize, to be present with them I need to be present with me. My creative pursuits is accessing pieces of myself that make me whole; that make me here. That leave a bit of my own legacy behind for them to pick up the pieces and analyze. They get insight into me I’ve never gotten with my parents.
My creative pursuits are a form of therapy. They’re a space for me to be authentic and honest and vulnerable. I don’t want them to have the Asian dad that stomps around and tells them they’re aren’t good enough. I want them to see me and see a person. A person who isn’t good enough theirselves, but gosh dang it I am trying.
So, sometimes this means writing with them on my lap, or sleeping next to me, or typing furiously into my phone while I ride the streetcar to daycare drop off. Then I put away my phone, pick them up, kiss them on the mfing nose and make sure they know we are here together. I am here and they are here.
And hopefully my writing leaves more clues and pictures and substance for them to hang onto who I am, and who we are.
That was really beautiful. I felt that. Thank you.
Speaking as someone whose parents didn't and don't have real hobbies or creative pursuits, I wish they had. I would have learned more about them as separate human beings and I think they would feel more fulfilled, connected to others, and happy. Your kids are lucky to experience that in you.
1. Mostly, for the world I have taken care of people. I can’t accept I won’t do anything major. Somehow I always think I will. But I have already focused mostly on the other people. They are my main purpose.
I have been taking care of people all my life. Everyone always needed me, even before I had children. My siblings, my parents and my grandparents.
3. I am not good at balancing my work and my children at all. I had to get tenure, so I had to set my kids aside, and do my work. Or we could not eat. My kids don’t like it. I DO like it. I don’t have to remind myself to pay attention to them. They remind me. They need me every second. My son calls me and cries if I am not home. If I am at home, he wants me to be right there with him, engaging with him. He wants me every moment. So the issue where I have to realize that they are what matters hasn’t come up so much.
The inability to be alone and think and do work creates an internal conflict and turmoil for me. So I believe, to be present to my family, and not feel conflict, I turn that part off.
There is a type of learned helplessness in a way because I fear getting involved in my projects and the heartbreak of interruption. I have had so many times where I was involved in work, and something absolutely crazy happened and I had to put aside my work. Maybe because I have lost faith I will get to do them, I stay detached from my projects. My family of origin also involves a lot of disruption because their lives are always in turmoil. There’s a lot of pain and heartbreak in my family of origin. I am often waiting for the other shoe to drop and sometimes cannot settle my mind to think clearly because I am constantly worried.
In the midst of all this, there is a kind of relationship with myself I don’t get to have as much as I want. I only meet this self when I work creatively. When I am working creatively, this is when I truly become an independent self. It feels like I am a different person. If I have not been able to get away to work, and then I do, it is almost like meeting an old friend I haven’t seen in a long time. But it is my SELF. I am thinking ‘oh, hey, how have you been?’ It is buried under everything else. I have to go and dig it up.
When I am with my children, it is a different self--a self that is melded and blended with them. However, it’s funny because they know there is another part of my life that does not involve them. It is like I am cheating on them with my work. But I do not think I could be more attentive if I tried. They are always on my mind.
The self that sees the people I love as the most important thing is vastly more dominant than the self who wants to do great work. Nevertheless, the self who wants to do work lets out little squeaks of distress.
I accept that maybe I won’t get all my life projects done, that I won’t get realize these visions I have. Yet, it’s still a painful realization. Hilariously, I thought I WOULD be some version of Nick Cave when I grew up. I loved Nick Cave as a teenager. Sometimes it is as if I am two people. One is a writer and scholar and one is a mother. They somehow can’t both fit into the same life very well. They aren’t very much alike. The mother self is so all-consuming and shoves aside the writer self, or represses it, so it languishes. I chose two types of lives that both have consuming identities and take up vast amounts of time where the role I fill is so different.
Life is very strange. Things just come up. You cannot control or plan things. Every day is another moment of rolling with it, and then another day. The idea there should be some overarching structure is an illusion. It might be a good illusion because it has practical relevance moment to moment. it guides you. But overall, you are kicking the can down the road until the road runs out.
Several things you mentioned struck me, but I don’t know if I can convey my thoughts about them succinctly.
The relationship with your self where you only meet when you work creatively- to me, that was a realization moment.
For me, I tell my family that I’m selfish, that I need uninterrupted time to work, and then I put them on hold.
But for those times when nobody’s home, when there are no interruptions, I often do NOT work. I waste my time away. I only get motivated again when everyone is back home. Then I use the “work” line to escape into my own world again.
That’s awful, but there it is. We need to have the family around, otherwise we’d be lonely and uncreative but when we’re all together, the impulse to escape into “work” is strong.
What a conundrum.
It really is! But to write, you need time with yourself. We’re not machines. Eventually, the brain shifts into the right mode and the writing comes.
Is it so awful? it feels awful but aren’t we also people?
Is ‘I have to work’ a line? I actually have a job where I have to write. We also belong to ourselves. Saying ‘to escape into my own world again’ --is this like saying ‘everything I am is owed to someone. Realizing my own goals is cheating them of *me,* to which they are totally entitled.’
Yes, this is what it is to be a mother. Except --do I owe anything to myself? Why did I get a PhD? This is what I have started to think about, but it is only because of what happens to me if I have no self apart from other people.
The idea that I am divisible and everyone gets a piece of me but I do not get a piece of me--this is what I question. Because for me, there is punishment in not having time to work. I pay a price for it. It’s potentially a pretty high price.
Maybe I will see the point of Nick Cave’s ideas eventually. Maybe tragedy will strike and I will have awful regrets. But all I am trying to do right now is balance different things (that cannot actually be balanced very well).
Well said. And I agree. I try to balance everything I can, and I’m getting better. *sigh*
Great! I kicked a rock to school. I feel all of this so much with 4 kids and there no routine, How is 1 mom and 1 dad supposed to manage life effectively? I’m always making progress. The rulebook I grew up on didn’t have any non-disciplinary outcomes. Life is not supposed to be a punishment. My kids start school next week and this year is unlike any past year, lots of learning and love. Going to take out the trash and color with my 6yo boss daughter
This is all so beautifully and richly expressed. I felt it viscerally. In my way, I feel this too: "In the midst of all this, there is a kind of relationship with myself I don’t get to have as much as I want. I only meet this self when I work creatively." I am single don't have kids but I am the caretaker/problem solver/manager of others at work and with my family. There are so many days I am too exhausted on all levels to write and so I write on the weekends. It feels like I'm holding my breath until then and I don't want to see or talk to anyone so I can be with my creative self.
I am a selfish piece of shit!!! I can’t get my essays done and I smile at no one!! I am newly married and terrified of the relief I’ll feel when I have a kid and no longer give a shit about my selfish self. Please advise.
This is beyond a bop, this is an anthem. (At least for me, the kid did help; I care way less about what a total POS I am now, just too busy plus it doesn’t seem material to her).
...But what about when they’re older and their POS radar really starts to hone in?? I’ll be screwed, yet predict I’ll care even less??
Oh yeah, by then I think we’ll be completely on the other side of being able to give a damn. It’s already hard for me!!!
You guys have no idea what the future holds, nor should you.
“Man makes plans, God laughs.”
It's true; one of the weirder things about aging is: you know that you didn't know jack 20 years ago, in some key senses, and you didn't know the future or what anything would be "like"; but you are expected to plan and act in the present as though you won't feel exactly the same about yourself today in another 20 years!
I hope God likes how much I make him laugh, at least.
IT IS ALL IMMATERIAL
“Each life is precarious, and some of us understand it and some don’t.“ 🌳 I love this whole post. I read in a book by Thomas Moore this week that mothering is both tending and excruciation, and it made me pause. That’s it, I thought, the pain is baked in, it’s a natural part of the process. That feels relevant here to the needs of the self (discovery, tending, hand-holding, ie work) and the needs of belonging to the whole, which also tends you. It’s so complicated, so real. I 1000% believe that artists are tending the psychic soil, turning it like mealy worms. The problem is that our culture makes us believe our work has to count on some grand scale, but what really matters is that all the worms are toiling and tilling, doing their jobs for their own lives and keeping the soil healthy as a whole. I also am a big believer in something that Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes says, basically when you do not bring out the magic that is within you, it can destroy you (no pressure!!) I think about this sometimes (I don’t know if it’s Jungian first but she is a Jungian analyst), it’s my basic duty to use my creative gifts, and turning away from them means at the very least turning away from life, and at worst turning toward a kind of sickness, a denial of my own greater needs. This sounds maudlin but I also think it’s kind of true. If I want to keep my mind and heart healthy, creative work is part of those chores. I frequently think of it like brushing my teeth but for mental health. It’s weird because too much work can also harm your mental health, so it’s such a fine balance, but I believe just like the sun guides plants in their daily growth, your heart will guide you if you really listen to it. I also wonder if Wilder is more a part of your heart and your creative work than you realize, because in both are seeds of joy? End rant/lecture! 💞🫶🏽🌿🫀
PS the koala kourt!!! Lol so good 💯
Great essay thank you. My kids are 8 and 10 and raising them has changed me completely. I used to think that if the great work never happened then it was all for shit. A very self-centered view. My kids have helped me understand my small place in the world and that making small positive contributions to the world is what matters. Modeling loving behavior to the best of my ability has become a far more rewarding lifestyle than feverishly chasing some kind of recognition from the world. Thanks again, great piece.
Wow beautifully put.
This one time a fan told me something I said made her get on antidepressants and I figure that’s what I was put on this earth to do and so everything else is bonus time.
Hahaha
“Surely it is more than nothing? It must be, what with the definition of nothing being no thing and my work being some thing”
That statement right there says it all.
🧡❤️🧡🧡🧡❤️🧡
To #7: When I'm biting my tongue and not saying what I want to say to spare the feelings of others. I have what I call "Ally McBeal Moments" (if you've ever seen the show, you know what I'm talking about) I'm calm on the outside and talking like a normal person. But on the inside--the Ally McBeal Moment-I'm telling you how I really feel. Possibly letting you have it with both barrels blazing. That holding back words/shoving down feelings stems from a childhood stutter and lisp. :/ Got rid of the lisp. And the stutter, for the most part.
I'm totally seeing that Ally McBeal mental image of someone being thrown into a dumpster right now. That show was brilliant at conveying those moments!
BWAHA! Agreed! LOL That used to be one of my favorite shows back in the day.
According to my mother, I rebelled against coming into the world at all (and she will tell you so at nauseating length). What have I done for it? I continue to rebel against its expectations. Merrily. :)
Merrily!
I can't even tell you how much this was exactly what I needed to read this morning.
I so loved this, Alex. Got the warm fuzzies here in Ohio reading this. Lots of great stuff in here. You made me want to go read Nick Cave's book. I have put his quote, 'It's got to be about love" in my pocket. Your question about writing - what does it matter in the long run - struck a chord. We all struggle with this balancing act of wanting desperately to connect with others, wanting to leave our DNA on our folding chairs and realizing at the same time we are so very small. I read your stuff for the warmth and humanity, silliness and love. You really had me going with the Koala Kourt.
I am just reading this now, days after it was posted, because I am on Family Vacation with spouse and boy. Which does not leave me much time alone or in contemplation or anything. But Alex my friend, you have asked Everything right here and while spouse and boy are downstairs playing ping-pong, I am having thoughts in response.
Today I was lost to myself at the top of a trail we hiked. There were waterfalls. My 16yo manchild played with pieces of birch bark, dropping each in and watching as it was caught in an eddy, swirled, maybe flowed further with the current to the next pool. I could have sat on my rock in the sun all day, just watching the simple joy and listening to the water rush. When I finally got up to leave --spouse and boy already skipped away-- I was surrounded by butterflies. Five or six dancing around me in the green sunlight. I ceased to exist as my usual self.
During the past week in the wilds of New Hampshire, our teenaged miracle has said on several occasions, “I am really enjoying spending time like this with both of you.” Not only has something gone terribly right-- I will also save up all those moments for when my boy is being a smarmy teen and taking it out on the nearest adult (generally me or spouse).
It’s funny: I thought I would be able to write more during this vacation, removed as I am from the stresses of everyday life. Nope. Does this mean I am undisciplined? Lacking talent / ability? Lazy? Afraid? All the same questions I have at home. Means nothing.
Having a life of the mind as a mother is so hard. Even when the child is not really a child anymore. Only when this boy is successfully launched into the world will I begun to feel less c
--less conflicted, I think. Now I try to hold each moment, whether it’s my boy beaming at me and spouse, or when I’ve crafted a sentence like a glassblower shaping it just so, or being enveloped in a butterfly dance. Not weighing one against the other, just accepting the gift.
Oh, and Nick Cave over Nick Cage. Any day. What a mensch.
omg this was amazing thank you I teared up at your son saying that to you
also I thought you'd just ended the post as "begun to feel less c" because you got pulled away back to life and that too was beautiful lol
Many people never push past their own bullshit, no matter their age.
man behind the comedian ... here. we. go. 💯
Ur so right. I have to thank @erin who kindly pointed out that the piece would be stronger without a lot of the goofs I had in there