Good morning and happy July!
June was a too-busy month for me, and I’m grateful for a slower pace for at least the next few weeks. Both of my sons are out of school for the summer, and they’ll be at home with me (partly because I think it’s good for them to have space to just play and I feel exceedingly lucky that our family is privileged enough to be able to make that work, and partly because who the hell can afford day camps in NYC). I feel...mostly okay with this! This past year they were both in school at least part-time, and so I had most weekday mornings free. I wound up tumbling into a sort of writing life, or at least feeling around the edges of it, picking it up and considering it. It felt really good. And now it’s summer and I have two months where that’s just not happening. What’s funny is that I expected to feel resentful about it. In some moments I do, but only in the moments where I’m putting pressure on myself to produce ~*content*~. I’m sure that by September I will be very happy to see them off to school again, but motherhood is good for me.
I’ve read a lot about how difficult it is to be a mother and also live any sort of creative life. And I’m not going to hash out those arguments here--I understand them and I do think they’re valid. But I would love to read more about the particular ways in which motherhood can benefit one’s creative life. Because I do think that, for me, motherhood has been a boon for my creative life in any number of ways. These days there’s an ebb and flow to it, mostly centered around when they’re in school. When they’re home it forces me to take a break and not push myself so hard to, I don’t know, seem interesting on the internet. When I’m with my kids, my days tend to just happen without my having the time to stop and document them for Instagram’s viewing pleasure, and that’s really healthy for me. (And I mean, I also think that kind of break is really healthy for everyone, in general.)
I’ve been pulling the Four of Swords a lot this month, and I think it reflects these feelings well. It’s about rest, mostly. And it’s connected numerologically to the Emperor, an archetype that I connect to expansion and space and feeling like I’m big enough to contain multitudes. And so, for me, the Four of Swords is about not rushing things. It’s about feeling comfortable in slowness. It’s about spending a day doing nothing but playing 27 games of Candyland and going to bed feeling like the day wasn’t wasted in some way. I’m not always good at this. I too like to be productive! I like for people to think I’m doing something valuable! (Mothering is mostly a difficult and unappreciated gig and I have a lot of feelings about it)
The stained glass window in the Four of Swords depicts a person kneeling in front of and being blessed by another person. My mind always goes to the story of Mary and Martha, and Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus while Martha resentfully busies herself as a host. It’s a story that I have a lot of trouble with. My instinctive reaction to it is always a knee jerk WELL SOMEONE HAS TO DO ALL THE STUFF, JESUS. Gotta be productive! Gotta look like I’m doing something! But so much of my motherhood is...not that. I mean, a lot of it is cooking dinner (I have never been so aware that people have to eat at least three times a day as I am now that I have to cook three meals a day for two tiny children). So much of it is just hanging out with my kids, whiling away the hours at the park or whatever. But it also focuses me in the immediate moment in a way that very few things do these days. I can’t perform my life. I have to actually live it. And it doesn’t look like much from the outside but it’s a rich way to be, and I’m grateful for the ways in which my kids remind me of it. That’s a real gift. And it’s the kind of stuff I think about when I sit with the Four of Swords.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I thought about making link-sharing a regular thing with these newsletters, but I also think that we all have too much to read all the time and I don’t want to add to the overwhelm, so for now I won’t be doing that. My little family and I will be travelling for a few weeks at the end of July and beginning of August, so I’m not going to guarantee a newsletter next month. But I’ll be around, and you know where to find me.
Brittany
That brings back memories of when my boys were younger. Have you read Lisa Marchiano’s (from the This Jungian Life podcast) book on Motherhood?
That brings back memories of when my boys were younger. Have you read Lisa Marchiano’s (from the This Jungian Life podcast) book on Motherhood?