Magic 8 Ball Mind
My thesaurus lists dozens of synonyms for “depression,” “love,” and even “tedium” but has no word for the state of boredom, alienation, and adoration induced by playing a game with a one-year-old, or the after-hours cocktail of exhaustion, fury, and addled romance served up by night waking.
Julie Phillips • The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem
What I soon realized is that maintaining a firewall between my “mom” self and the rest of my self was making motherhood much less interesting. The rest of myself was being so challenged — psychologically, spiritually, philosophically, creatively and intellectually — by caring for my son. But I resisted it, and tried to keep care small because nobod... See more
Anne Helen Petersen • "I Went Into Motherhood Determined Not to Lose Myself in It."
But the issue of children and who looks after them has become, in my view, profoundly political, and so it would be a contradiction to write a book about motherhood without explaining to some degree how I found the time to write it. For the first six months of Albertine’s life I looked after her at home while my partner continued to work. This exp
... See moreA life's work
This is how I discovered that the secret to life is little books. Over the last few years, I’ve now written many. And what began as an exercise in parenting my child ended up becoming something closer to a meditation challenge for me: take any potentially anxiety-provoking situation, and imagine explaining it via the most calming haiku possible.
Jessi Klein • I'll Show Myself Out
Creative work is hard. And we constantly beat ourselves up for not producing high quantities of high-quality stuff. It’s easy to forget that we’re trying to make this work at a time when we’re oversaturated with connections, and constant, flashing demands. Boring old boundaries have never been more vital. Going into the cave will feel a little cold... See more