Tantalus sends a postcard

I’ve been back from New York for a few days now but I’m trying to keep that feeling of being … away.

Sometimes I feel like Tantalus — the ancient Greek who was punished for some transgression by being confined to a specific scenario in hell: he is sitting in a pool of water below a branch of fruit, agonized with hunger and thirst — but every time he puts his mouth down to drink or his hand up to reach, the water and fruit elude him.

And I just looked up what Tantalus did to deserve such a fate: while a guest at Zeus’s table he stole ambrosia and was planning on sharing it with mankind, thus revealing the secrets of the gods.  So he overreached and was punished by never being able to grasp what he desired … what he needed.

Ouch.

So my life isn’t that bad — not by any means!  But

Read Full Post »

Escape with Cindy Sherman

For Mother’s Day my beloved spouse got me the book Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills.

In many ways this is a completely normal gift — I’ve always loved Cindy Sherman (well, except maybe her vomit-scapes, but overall: very much).  But in one way it feels odd.  Cindy Sherman — for Mother’s Day.  It’s not that Cindy Sherman was or wasn’t a mother — it’s that she embodies so many different people.

The bulk of Sherman’s work is

Read Full Post »

The time you spend with yourself

I found this cartoon for Mother’s Day and thought, oh yes — especially the last two: alone time and audience-free.

(You can find the rest of this series here.)

With 14-month-old twins, I am almost never alone in my own house (except for naps, which could be over at any moment — or not happen at all).  I miss my alone time.

As adults we don’t seem to get a lot of alone time — time to doodle around, think about things, or stare out a window and let our minds quietly put themselves in order without us even realizing it.  Even at the age of 25, Lena Dunham (writer, director and star of the HBO series Girls) misses that time.  A recent New York magazine article, “It’s Different for ‘Girls,’” says of Dunham’s time at Oberlin:

She was a creative-writing major who spent most of her time bingeing on movies; the only one she confesses she hasn’t seen is The Godfather. “I watched the whole Criterion Collection. I’d spent the entire week watching every Fassbinder movie in my bed. I got mono, and I would just rent movies. It was the kind of time you just don’t get to spend with yourself when you’re out in the world.”

I think something vital happens in this time we spend with ourselves

Read Full Post »

Privacy in the 21st century

Yesterday I discovered a brilliant essay on The Rumpus: “On Pregnancy and Privacy and Fear” by Aubrey Hirsch.  Hirsch values her privacy and is reluctant to let her pregnancy eclipse the other aspects of her identity; she uses silence to try to hang onto her  “pre-pregnancy self” as long as possible.

She writes:

I like that self. I like the way people speak to her, react to her. I don’t want things to change. I have enough friends with babies to know how this works. Once you let people know you’re pregnant, you’re entered into lots of conversations about your belly, your weight, your breasts and how you plan on using them, what medications you’ll take, and why you’re right or wrong about them. I don’t want to have these conversations. I like the kinds of conversations I already have.

I remember when the conversations around me began to change. 

Read Full Post »

Must be nice … or not

Ah, New York Times Sunday Styles — you often surprise me, and that’s part of the pleasure of reading you.  But this Sunday your front page featured “The Baby Bump,” which claims, “For celebrities whose film and TV careers have stalled, motherhood is proving a lucrative Plan B.”  Really?

Read Full Post »

Must be nice … or not

Ah, New York Times Sunday Styles — you often surprise me, and that’s part of the pleasure of reading you.  But this Sunday your front page featured “The Baby Bump,” which claims, “For celebrities whose film and TV careers have stalled, motherhood is proving a lucrative Plan B.”  Really?

Read Full Post »

Schedules

All this past weekend I couldn’t stop thinking about schedules.  The word schedule comes from the Latin schedula or “slip of paper,” a diminutive of scheda, from the Greek skhedē, meaning “papyrus leaf.”  I like that its origins have to do with plants and paper — and writing.

If you read my last post (Take your twins to work — every day) you know that I’ve been struggling with balancing writing and twin-care.  The twins are on a pretty set schedule — wake up, bottle, play, nap, breakfast, play, walk, lunch, nap, play, dinner, walk, play, bottle, bed.  Could I sum up my day in the same simple way?

Read Full Post »

Take your twins to work — every day

So April 26th was Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day.  I missed it, but it doesn’t matter.  I never take my twins to work — they’re already there.  My twins and my work live in the same place: home.

I’m a writer.  Less than twenty yards separate my workspace from their play-space.  Sometimes they break out of their room, run up to my desk, stand on their tippy toes, their chins perched on the edge, their tiny hands reaching for the corner of a piece of paper, a pen, a paperclip, the coaster under a mug of tea.  They love to grab things and run away, waving their contraband like a pirate flag.  But this is not conducive to writing.

Read Full Post »

Mom insomnia

Way back in November I read a New York Times article called Sleep Medication: Mother’s New Little Helper.  In November the twins were around six months old.  They were sleeping though the night and so was I.

Dear reader, forgive me, but I thought the whole sleepless mom thing was kind of BS.  Not if they were sleepless because they were dealing with 2am feedings, but sleepless they couldn’t stop thinking about things?  Really?

Note to self (and others): when you’re very new to a large and long-established group — like moms  — do not judge them until you have been a member of said group for longer than six months — or six years, or sixteen — or even then!  You have little idea what you’re in for, so stay open to what might be around the corner.

What was around the corner for me was — surprise! — insomnia.

Read Full Post »

Who Does She Think She Is?

Last night I watched Who Does She Think She Is?, a documentary about women who are artists — and mothers.

I put off watching this film because I was still in a Plath-y state of mind and I didn’t want to be further discouraged.  I was pretty sure that a documentary like this wouldn’t end in, say, a whole bunch of affairs and breakdowns and suicides — but I wasn’t sure enough.  Still, last night I hit “play.”

The film was honest.  It’s hard to be an artist.  It’s hard to be a mother.  And it’s really hard to be both at the same time.

Read Full Post »