Wow. It is really not in my best interest to take two weeks off writing. I have been thinking about writing nonstop. I have been making notes in my phone like a maniac. I have been composing essays while I wash my hair. The sentences come and go like vapor. They are ghosts sitting on the foot of my bed. I blink and they’re gone. Every time I do write, I text my husband, “Don’t let me go this long without writing ever again!” And yet…
Anyway, happy to be back. Writing is hard, but the hardest part is sitting down to do it. It’s cliche because it’s true.
I haven’t written for two weeks because I took my girls to Houston to celebrate the birth of a new cousin and Passover. And then they got sick so we drove home early and hunkered down. I find it difficult to make space for writing amidst the rhythms of caring for my kids. I know I can wake up earlier. I know I can squeeze it in at nap time, but the flow I feel in writing ALONE, without the worry that they’ll wake up at any minute…it allows me to go slow, to ruminate, to give the ideas some breathing room. Spaciousness can feel so out of reach as a mom.
I am grateful to have a new perspective on this, which I wrote about here, that’s dramatically changed the pace of my internal and external world. No more flitting around manically. Or at least I’m doing it less.
Truthfully: a few weeks ago I found myself at the top of my staircase with three stuffed animals tucked under one arm, a box for recycling under the other, and TWO mason jars of water, one in each hand. I was crouched over, kind of balancing the box between my armpit and my thigh. And as I began to shuffle down the stairs, as to not the disturb the VERY delicate balance of items I’d somehow contorted my body to accommodate…everything came crashing down. A stuffed alligator slid bottoms-up across the landing. The mason jars shattered and splashed at my feet. The cardboard box toppled all the way down to the first floor leaving a trail of packing popcorn behind it. I froze. And then I laughed. I had nowhere to be! My kids were in daycare for the morning. Why was I so frenzied! Why did I need to consolidate my trips up and down the stairs!
To be fair, it can feel like mad rush to squeeze things into the short time I have childcare. I know a lot of moms feel this. HURRY. HURRY. HURRY. I’m reminded of this Marie Howe poem I’ve shared before. I love it so much.
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I started watching Tiny Beautiful Things over the weekend. I LOVE
. I remember when I first came across her work. It was summer in Austin. I was driving down Barton Springs with a friend. We were 20-something, glistening with sunscreen and sweat. At a red light she pulled Tiny Beatiful Things out of her straw tote. The cover was creased and the pages were coffee stained. She started reading aloud and we locked in. That is the vortex of good writing.Anyway, there is a moment in the show adaptation when Kathryn Hahn who plays Clare (who is a sort-of fictionalized version of Cheryl Strayed) rediscovers her writing desk dusty in the basement. In this moment she decides to accept the role of advice columnist for The Rumpus, which she has vehemently resisted since she got the offer Her life is a mess. Her marriage is rocky. Her relationship with her daughter is strained. She’s likely to lose her day job. And she’s abandoned her writing entirely. Who is she to give advice, she keeps saying. But when this moment of clarity comes, she writes an email in acceptance of the role. I don’t know much right now, is the gist of what she says, but I know these three things for sure: “I am my mother’s daughter. I am my daughter’s mother. And I am a writer.”
“I am” statements tend to read like empty affirmations, but not these. These are simple facts, and somehow - in their fact-ness- they carry a mysticism. It’s the knowing you are a writer as surely as you know your daughter was born to you. It is the simplicity. The cutting clarity. To be just the truest things we are. Nothing more, nothing less. To build lives that honor the facts of us. I am someone who used to chronically overcommit, who was a new mom, pregnant again, a business owner, a Phd student, teaching assistant, research assistant, board member ALL AT ONCE. It’s my season for simplification.
I am my mother’s daughter. I am my daughters’ mother. I am a writer.
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Okay.
Let’s switch gears.
Here’s an unusual list of things I’ve kept in my notes app. I started this list after discovering
, a very cool listicle style newsletter where people "share a taste of their taste."Here ya go!
Outside days outside days are days where you spend almost the whole day outside. I’m talking everything you can do outside, you do outside. These are the only indoor activities of the day: brush your teeth, make your food. use the restroom. Otherwise, you are on a hike. You are working at a picnic table. You are on a walk. You are eating at a picnic table. You are sitting in the grass staring at a tree. You are doing yoga in your backyard, or frontward, or on whatever little patch of nature you can find. These days are good for your inner child. They are good for feeling like you’re at summer camp. They deliver on the satisfying feeling of peeling off your socks at the end of the day.
Rain gear If you have rain gear, you can have an outside day when it’s raining. I bought my kids rain gear last weekend and we hiked in a bit of a sprinkle. They stomped in puddles and their rain pants dried right off!
The Library I am in love with the library! I did not grow up going to the library. The only library I remember going to was right in the middle of downtown. I was 16 I think and I was writing a paper on the history of the bra. The traffic was stressful and the parking was expensive. In my memory the building was 100 stories tall and I couldn’t ever find the books I needed! I always forgot to return my books and I was embarrassed of my late fees. BUT, everything has changed! Libraries in San Antonio are my favorite thing! I can reserve a book on the app and find it set aside for me on a special shelf by the fish tank. There are so many incredible and FREE youth programs. They did away with late fees. The buildings are beautiful and so are the people inside them. I love librarians! I love patrons of the library! I love the woman with the big smile and perfect posture that walks her geriatric hound dog off leash around the periphery of the building!
Being a contradiction. I highly recommend wearing a floral dress and listening to The Rat on your way to school pickup.
Leaving Your Phone. This weekend I left my phone at home two days in a row during our little family outings. I was with my husband who had his phone in case of emergency, but, that’s not the point. The point is being without your phone feels uncomfortable until it feels INCREDIBLE. I heard recently that people keep their phones no more than 15 feet away from them at all times. It was phrased differently and cited as research, but you get the point. It rings true, right?! People take their phones to the bathroom. We sleep with them right by our pillows. They travel with us from room to room as we move about our houses! I had a lot of fun without my phone, more fun than usual I’d say. When I first got a flip phone its only use was to call my parents, and I lost it all the time! I was the girls who always forgot her phone. I miss that girl. She was very present.
Lyrics That Rip You To Shreds I mean, this song.
Listening to Pings When you rewire your brain to tolerate long stretches of silence again (most likely by leaving your phone in the other room) you may start getting little messages delivered straight to your brain like a DM from the ether. This has been my experience. It’s really fucking cool and also very easy to ignore if you don’t hone your ability to notice. I have missed a bunch lately which have ended in minor calamity and/or regret.
Okay, this was maybe a weird post, but I just needed to get back in the swing of things. Hoping to bring you more fully formed essays in the coming weeks.
With love,
Stephanie
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"The cutting clarity. To be just the truest things we are. Nothing more, nothing less. To build lives that honor the facts of us." 💕
I just used an outside day to catch up on all your writing. Perfect!
Loved reading this. I know that feeling when you haven’t written in ages too. When your observations go unwritten. I really enjoy your insights