This Woman’s Work
Apron. Watercolor on Paper. Emily Lex Studio Watercolor Workbook. © Emily Bode
The sun dapples golden light on the rug in my daughter’s room. The room that used to be my studio. As I sit here on her tiny bed, I remember why I love this room.
I miss the woman I was in this room before the lens through which I work here became mother’s work: nursing, rocking, folding clothes, chasing her around to brush her hair. I used to send $70,000 worth of print files from the same spot a paper bag turned Olaf is now taped to the wall. Never 1 spelling error, not a single 1!, in all of those files, I must add.
I do not regret the life I have now, but I do bereave the woman I used to be sometimes. Grieving her may be necessary to become the woman I am now.
One role is not more important than the other, depending on which day you ask me and at what time. Asking me what role I prefer in the morning may give a different response than when you ask me before bedtime.
Two years ago, it was a given that Mother above all was the only role for me. I made sure my actions reflected my values in that season. As Mother Earth orbits around the sun, seasons change, allowing us to place ourselves. An anchor amongst changing tides.
My anchor was something different when this room was my studio. I’d love to say it was something sexy like my marriage or our travels, but the anchor was my work. Bent over a computer screen until my back hurt and my vision blurred kind of work. I do not recommend it. 0 out of 5 stars.
Ironically, it was just as much hidden work as a mother’s work is. We must tell our stories, lest they go unnoticed.
These early years of Motherhood, I didn’t have the anchor I’ve known for the majority of my life thus far. I was cast out to sea and couldn’t place myself in the vast expanse of blue where you never reach the horizon you seek. I didn’t have the job to anchor me — maybe career isn’t the best choice of anchor.
The tumult and chaos of being lost at sea may be the prerequisite to the woman I want to be.
I have a different anchor now — a feisty blonde who took over my studio! along with her father. My family.
There is a rearrangement taking place. Career, hobbies, wellness, relationships, neighbors, it’s all being reoriented in a way that makes more sense for the season we’re in right now. I don’t seek balance in my life as much as I want to be safe on the rolling waves of a wild body of water.
Quite the seafaring metaphor for a gal who’s never been at sea, but I did endure Lake Michigan’s gales of November on the way to Beaver Island thinking I was going down with that ship. That’s all it took for me to understand.
We discuss the winds of changein a theoretical sense, but when you’re in the throes of it, implementing a response in real-time, theories quickly become hogwash.
You just try to survive, making the best decision you can in the moment so you don’t sink. You find yourself on steady ground — when the sun dapples on the rug in the studio turned nursery, a rare silent moment in the house. For this one glorious moment, you are ok.
So, you continue on.
On Grandma’s Bookshelf
🦀 It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey | This book may be to blame for my sea-heavy lingo. It’s my first Tessa Bailey. Up until last night, I would’ve told you I’m pleasantly suprised I like it. 50% of the way through it’s getting a bit too cheese for me but summer beach reading continues. Nice to end the day with something light!
🧜🏼♀️ Tallulah: Mermaid of the Great Lakes | Read this at bedtime the other night. It’s such a wonderful premise about mermaids & the Great Lakes. My favorite line:
There are mermaids in the ocean
And mermaids in the sea.
But here among the Great Lakes
Is where I’m meant to be.
Me too, Miss Tallulah. Me too.
🖍️ Mommy Burnout by Dr. Sheryl Ziegler | Reading this on my Kindle sporadically. I couldn’t have read this a few years ago; it would’ve made me even more hypervigilant than I already was trying to navigate becoming a Mom. But now, it’s nice in small doses to read stories of Dr. Ziegler’s patients that validate it’s not “all in my head”.
I have observed that today’s moms have fewer close and intimate friendships than in the past,…you must scratch this biological itch. To compensate, I theorize, many moms direct their oxytocin-created urges into “over-tending” to their kids and “under-befriending” with their girlfriends. Women experiencing mommy burnout tend to have imbalanced reactions to their natural stress response.
I was, & still am, working through burnout. Most intriguing to me now is the topic on female friendships Dr. Ziegler is covering — how are your female friendships?
Originally sent to Substack subscribers in July 2025.
Raise a Garden. Raise Good Children. Raise a Ruckus.
Raise a garden, raise good children, raise a ruckus.
– Robin Wall Kimmerer
Hey all,
This is what Robin Wall Kimmerer said during her talk at GVSU this month. It lingers with me still.
That, and the Indigenous man who began the talk sharing what a handshake means to the Pottawatomie nation; when you shake another person's hand, your spirits become in conversation with one another. They continue to communicate after the handshake has ended.
We are the present expression of 4,042 grandparents, our ancestors, he explained. What we do with our time here on Earth will affect the seventh generation beyond us. I have an impact now on how my great-great-great-great-great-great grandchild may live. This knowledge makes me live differently. I am not here solely for myself.
If I could summarize what I’ve been up to since raising my first garden, that would be it; I’m trying to make decisions prioritizing the long game beyond myself.
I’ve begun working part-time at a marketing agency near home. It's the catalyst to shifting the kaleidoscope of light again; the past 2 years are looking different now that they’re in the rearview. Story for another day. It’s long & layered like my mane as of late. I’m giving myself the space to unpack it.
In this letter, you’ll find:
print resources for the holiday
a new passion project
how this newsletter will shift moving forward
Thanks for being here, I love sharing this stuff with you. xo, Em
Photo & Print resources for the holiday
I promised a round-up of print resources for getting photos on your walls, in your books, and sent to family & friends this holiday. I’ve looked into each of these in more depth &/or have used them myself for years. My top 5 from highest ($$$) to lowest ($):
Artifact Uprising | $$$
Artifact Uprising is my tried and true for elevated photo prints. Their calendar is a perennial favorite. Cards, photo albums, and large-scale photo prints are top quality here. I always order my photos in matte (instead of gloss or semi-gloss).
Calendars starting at $35 | Prints starting at $1.11/print | Albums starting at $62 | Holiday cards $1.45/ea.
Upcoming sales:
Periodic sales leading up to their Very Merry Sale, offered around Black Friday.
One-time coupon code 10FORYOU for 10% off.
Paper Culture | $$
I recently switched to Paper Culture for our holiday cards. These are eco-friendly, they dedicate a tree in honor of a loved one with each purchase, and are great quality for the sustainable aspect (hard to find!). They offer free address printing (unheard of elsewhere). This is one of those places I was like, is this too good to be true? No, it isn’t. Highly recommend.
Prints starting at $1.33/print | Albums starting at $40 | Holiday cards $1.79/ea.
Upcoming sales:
50% off through November 21 on holiday cards and photobooks. No code needed. This is an amazing deal!
30% off invitations. No code needed.
mpix | $$ | *people’s choice
mpix was recommended the most in my question box. It sounds like many of you are given this option by your family photographer to print out high-quality photos from your sessions. I see Shutterfly as the equivalent of mpix but I don’t care for Shutterfly’s photo quality so I don’t recommend them, ha. I will however try mpix thanks to your recommendations.
Prints starting at 36¢/print | Albums starting at $20 | Holiday cards $1.79/ea.
Upcoming sales:
25% off your first order.
mpix coupon page circulates ongoing offers, 10%–30% off.
Google Photos Print Store | $
The Google Photos Print Store is available with a free Gmail account. The standard amount of free space you’re given holds A LOT of photos. This option is a no-brainer. I highly recommend it as an alternative to convenience store prints. My experience with Walgreens & Meijer Photo lately sucks (poor color quality, surprise cropping, low-quality paper) so I’m a Google convert. At least with their print store.
It’s simple to navigate the interface to build a photobook from the albums made in Google Photos. You can also coordinate pickup at your nearest participating convenience store (the ones I shit on in the paragraph above ha). I like to make both my photobooks & prints and then have them delivered because the print quality is better that way.
Their new Premium Print subscription series is $7/mo for 10 prints/month. An automated print shop is the convenience factor I need to keep up with our child doing cute things. All I have to do is give up one Starbucks vanilla sweet cream nitro cold brew per week and it’s paid for. Easy peasy.
Prints starting at 18¢/print | Albums starting at $15 | Subscription photos $7/mo.
Upcoming sales:
25% off and free shipping through November 30.
They consistently run deals 10%–25% off throughout the year.
Still Novel | $$
Still Novel is a fun option for memory prints. A customized framed photo with details from an important milestone in your life; wedding anniversary, family vacation, birth announcement, pets, whatever in a range of styles and sizes.
Snapshot birth stat print (11”x17”) starting at $49 | Signature memory print (16”x20”) starting at $65 (these prices don’t include framing)
Upcoming sales:
Coupon code MOBILE10 for 10% off (unsure when it expires).
10% off with email sign-up.
The order of priority (& what I’m doing) is:
Holiday cards at Paper Culture before this Tuesday, Nov. 21 for 50% off & free address labeling.
Photo albums and prints at Google Print Store before next Thursday, Nov. 30 for 25% off and free shipping.
Annual photo calendar at Artifact Uprising sometime before Christmas for their Very Merry Sale discounts for my desk calendar.
sunday linen vintage collection
When I’m not scouring the web for print deals, I’ve been curating & collecting coastal vintage wares for my new online vintage shop, Sunday Linen. Read the posts here to see the what, why, & when of it. Spring 2024 is the first available collection for sale.
the state of this letter
The latest evolution of this newsletter was about the intersection of art, motherhood, & healing, Spring 2022–Fall 2023. I haven’t done a great job expressing these 3 categories to the depth I’ve felt them but I’m proud of the braid I wove. Each letter was tender, intentional, and true. It may be the catalyst for a book I write someday, the original hope since my August 2022 letter.
Motherhood posts will be archived soon with a pay-to-peruse option. I’m grateful I’ve offered my writing on the internet for 10 years free of charge but offering your heart willy nilly eventually weakens the spine.
I don’t have a plan moving forward for this letter. It’ll reflect something of my nature in some way as it’s done since 2013. You’ll stick with me if you want, as you have at some point between 2013–2023.
You’ll notice a refresh in photos, colors, maybe a logo (a brand, they call it ;)) soon. A designer seeks out another designer to craft her brand refresh. We shouldn’t do all the work ourselves, how ever can there be self-awareness without the aid of trusted others?
A reading/listening/watching section may be added to the letter. I like reading those from others. Open to hearing what you like in the newsletters you let into your sacred inbox.
in the meantime, get your memories into print. make those moments tangible. invite people over to your house and show them all those beautiful beautiful things you’re doing with all those beautiful beautiful humans in your life. Your great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren will thank you.
Love, Emily
Originally sent to Substack subscribers in November 2023.
A Liminal Space
You’ll find me on the back roads during these late Summer days. The speed of the highway means windows can’t roll down to feel the warm breeze and the wildflowers blur when I want to view each color so I slow down, surrounded by fields.
There’s one road, in particular, I frequent to recenter. It leads me to a dream of mine. The dust and loose gravel of the dirt road swirl around in a dreamy haze as I meander past the late 1800s farmhouse.
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A family with young children lives there. The new windows, fresh paint, and any number of changes each time I pass confirm they’re there for the long haul. Chipping away at making it their own.
I can’t actually live there. Mainly because other people already do.
It’s important to have an aspiration to hold onto, one that physically exists when the tumult and stagnation of daily routine induce lethargy and lack of focus. I’m currently in a liminal space, a transitional period. I won’t go back to where I was but I haven’t yet arrived at the new place. It’s a natural place to be. I just didn’t think I’d be here this long.
When enough time, discontent, and pressure have been brought to bear, the Wild Woman of the psyche will hurl new life into a woman’s mind, giving her the opportunity to act on her own behalf once more.
— From Clear Water: Nourishing the Creative Life in Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.
We’re scared to be in liminal spaces of any kind so we try to avoid them; waiting for a text reply, asking our children a million unnecessary questions in a row (it’s maddening, stop it.), wondering what the test results mean, confronting a friend unsure how they’ll respond.
There are the liminal spaces that last longer too, which can really send you spinning; in-between jobs, pausing a career to tend to children/parents/etc, recovering from illness, a stalemate with friends, healing from trauma. Life forces us into liminal spaces sometimes. I like to think the silver lining is gaining adaptability and resilience.
So yeah, the drive-by farmhouse dream looks pretty damn good when this season of liminality has me scattered and unfocused. I’m glossing over the realities by romanticizing it, but a dream is useful if it spurs you into action.
To lose focus means to lose energy. The absolutely wrong thing to attempt when we’ve lost focus is to rush about struggling to pack it all back together again. Rushing is not the thing to do. […] sitting and rocking is the thing to do. Patience, peace, and rocking renew ideas. Just holding the idea and the patience to rock it are what some women might call a luxury. Wild Woman says it is a necessity.
— From Clear Water: Nourishing the Creative Life in Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.
When all is quiet, I hear her call. My creative life.
I thought I’d lost her for good so I rushed in fear, trying to squeeze back into a life now too small for me. Giving birth is one of those moments in life you can’t go back from. It’s an initiation, one of the rites of passage to womanhood, just like your first menstrual cycle and, from what I hear, your last leading you to menopause.
These moments are part of your story you can’t take back even if you wish it’d gone differently. It becomes yours in all its imperfect, messy, soul-opening, earth-shattering glory. For better and for worse, both of those things.
I wonder what would happen if we all sat with that instead of rushing, long enough to face our discomfort, not knowing what we will find. Rocked ourselves the way we so lovingly rock our babies. Embodied this unapologetic necessity required to regain focus, instead of writing it off as luxury.
I’m trying. I’ll report back.
Seeking a part-time gig
Speaking of liminal spaces, I’m searching to get out of mine. I’m seeking part-time work beginning in the Fall if any dear readers know of something? I have 10+ years in marketing/graphic design/writing but I’m also handy in a greenhouse, a bookshop/library, and most definitely know my way around a newspaper, print shop, sewing machine, a basketball court, soccer field, and softball diamond. Some might say I have range so if you know of anything, I’d be so appreciative to hear about job openings! You can email me simply by replying to this email or send to emilygracebode@gmail.com.
Notables:
My free summer mini-series, Garden Notes, continues. It’s sent to all subscribers every Sunday. Week 11 goes out this Sunday 8/6 at golden hour.
announced her latest novel, Funny Story. I read her last 4 this summer, spurred on by our summer book club selection. Excited for this one!
I’m on a social media pause for August I lovingly call Analog for August. has a great preview of her social media break which inspired me to take mine this month.
Current read: The Beach at Summerly by Beatriz Williams
Current podcast: Let’s Talk about Sex on Beyond the Prescription with (kind of about sex, mostly about how to ask helpful questions to your doctors with the little time given at appointments, and menopausal symptoms that are good to know before you’re going through menopause)
Originally sent to Substack subscribers in August 2023.
Family Cabins
My family is down at the lake. I’m itching to get down there too. So much of the last few weeks have me sentimental about summering at my grandparent’s cabin. I’ve been trying to replicate the feelings of those summer cabin weekends my entire adult life. With the home we saved for, the jobs I’ve taken, and the way I choose to stay a Michigander. Those feelings were so good, so pure, wrapped in a golden haze of nostalgia that only time passing can bring.
Because of course there were disagreements between my mother and her mother-in-law we were all sitting through, scarfing down ham sandwiches to get out of the dark log cabin kitchen of tension and back into the open air and sunshine. There were long-term resentments bubbling beneath the surface between brothers, illnesses tiptoed around, and gossip amongst sisters, click-clacking like the waves smacking the fiberglass sides of the Bayliner.
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It’s the magic of being a child, those familial disagreements are there but you don’t see them. They wash off you like the crisp water of the lake when you surface after a cannonball. Get back to scoring who had the best one off the raft. Have the neighbor teach you how to ski with the old wooden ones they’ve passed down for generations. Change out of your wet suit into your sweats, walk through the yard picking up kindlin’ for tonight’s bonfire.
We think if we could just abolish the tensions between one another, then the cottage would be more enjoyable. We head home at the end of it, sun-wiped and amiss from all the things that were not said in the quaint communal spaces of cabin life. We say the cabin would be better if we could all just get along, if “they” hadn’t shown up.
It’s not the family member. Not really. Not the history between us. Or maybe it is, and we eventually all work through it or avoid it, find moments of happiness that keep us coming back after we recoup back home. Maybe we just need a break before we return to the cabin once again with a renewed spirit, a new outlook, or a forgive-and-forget mentality that we can genuinely put behind us. There will always be a disagreement, a misunderstanding, a tension between family members.
And, if we’re lucky, there will always be the cabin to hold us amidst it all.
To remind us that it’s bigger than the argument. Not just for the kids but for us too, as we were once kids blissfully unaware of anything that was not the cannonball competition, the wooden skis tied together with a rope, the waves lapping around the boat we napped on.
The golden haze returns, just as you remembered it.
The stories the cabin holds.
Originally sent to Substack subscribers in July 2023.
Creative Grace
With this newsletter’s one-year anniversary happening this month, I’ve been reflecting on my past newsletter, Creative Grace. I always wanted to write a Letter from the Editor so I created a digital magazine. I followed an editorial style I’ve always preferred in newspapers and my favorite magazines.
I was the sole writer, editor, and creative director, funneling readers to my blog for longer-form articles related to each seasonal theme (this was a quarterly newsletter). It was visually pretty and well-received.
Emily Grace is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
It gave me great practice in curating words, images, and graphics in an eye-pleasing, mind-digestible way, around a theme that aligned with the earthly seasons.
Then I found out I was pregnant while traveling the country designing events, teaching at a local university, and considering a new design opportunity closer to home with benefits for the incoming kiddo. I’m just now realizing — wow! this project really fell by the wayside. Ha.
Here she is, in all her archived glory. Forgotten, but not gone. Maybe it’s a seed for another evolution, maybe it was just a fun project for what it was. Either way, I’m proud of it:
Originally sent to Substack subscribers in April 2023.
Road Trip Ramble
Hello friend,
The time between the March moon and the April moon is the longest of the year. I’m a she-wolf howling the entire month through. My goodness, I could do without the month of March. Spring hasn’t arrived in our Northern lake town, so we sought it out down South. I’ve been shaking off my winter skin among the dogwoods of North Carolina, the live oaks of Savannah, and the mangroves of Florida. The further South I roam, the closer to myself I get.
A she-wolf rests.
One revelation I’ve had on this road trip: until you visit a place yourself, it would behoove you not to speak on it. Because you don’t have the context, you haven’t heard a person’s story who’s lived there for generations, you don’t know the fabric of a place you’re walking into and even then, you’re merely a visitor passing through. Best you be a humble one, treading lightly, and take off your shoes so as to not leave a trace.
I’m fatigued by everything being the same. This adventure is getting me out of my own head and waking me up to the critical importance that we must not move through this life as reposts of one another’s avatars. Witness what is in front of you (off of your screen), ask yourself your feelings about it, and don’t share what you think. Just let it simmer within and see how it shapes you.
Dare to let your mind be bored.
It’s been 1 year of this newsletter!I appreciate those of you who have welcomed me into your inbox this past year, never knowing what you might get from me. Hopefully, there’s been a line or two you’ve enjoyed. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed celebrating the moon’s monthly cycle in this way with you. — Em
Originally sent to Substack subscribers in April 2023.
Bread & Roses
It’s Women’s History Month.
Your social feeds are hopefully riddled with quotable captions from prominent women in our society, local libraries displaying titles about women of the past who led great change, and your monthly meetup or workplace honoring female stories. I’d like to add mine to the mix, hinging on a lesser-told story:
women don’t get along well with other women.
I’m aware of the perception that I’m a feminist due to the early years of my blog, Brave Girl. My mission was to empower other women to define their career standards while defining my own, then sharing those findings on my blog. My intention through it all was women supporting women, a now overused phrase. What I shared on-screen though started to contrast greatly with what I was actually experiencing with women in the workplace, freelance collaborations, and budding friendships.
Brave Girl became a container to hold what I didn’t have in my real life; healthy female friendship. I was facing a deep childhood wound head on, although I wasn’t consciously aware of it yet. It’s called trauma mastering. Where you try to replicate a traumatizing scenario and master it this time, to gain back the control you didn’t have the first time around.
My first female friendship in childhood robbed me of an innocence I wonder if I’ll always be trying to reclaim. It convoluted boundaries before I knew to form them. Muddling lines between what makes a good friend and how to know you’re being mistreated. I’ve been skeptical, possibly self-sabotaging, of female relationships ever since.
It makes sense then that the messaging of women empowering women, #metoo, and carry as you climb is confusing for me. It buzzes ever more loudly during Women’s History Month, specifically International Women’s Day (March 8). Some women don’t use these phrases with purity, especially when their career, finances, or family are involved. This is nothing to hide but for layered reasons, it’s exactly what I’ve experienced in many workplace situations and collaborations, ironically when the projects intend to highlight women and underrepresented groups. I don’t believe all women have good intentions just because they’re a woman. The expectation that I’m a supportive, kind, compassionate person only if I agree with all women by default of their femaleness is unrealistic.
Today I overheard two women on the trail. Before I could make out their words I made out thee tone, the tone universally recognized as bitching about another woman. As the duo got closer, the woman complaining started to break up her sentences as one does when they don’t want their gossip to be judged by a stranger. It was something about a fruit bowl and the friend in question had not brought enough of it. On purpose. To harm the event. As their Patagonia puffers swished forward quickly, the bitching about an invisible woman withholding sugar from the group seemed to bring the two women closer together.
Building a relationship whose connection relies on disdain for a third party — is this the norm for female friendship? What does it look like to attempt a new norm?
I don’t know what an ideal female friendship looks like. My past is riddled with friendships that soured and abruptly ended, ranging in reason from professional to petty. Please note I’m a devout fan of the Real Housewives, lest you think I’m trying to raise the reverb on Sisterhood. I also think it’s too easy to blame the patriarchy for all our problems. I’m asking with incredulous curiosity rooted in a deep childhood wound followed by repeated friendship fallouts — what makes a healthy woman?
What I read about women, conversations I’ve had lately, and the banter overheard in daily errands where mainly women frequent, is all about self-improvement. It suggests there’s a better version of me in the distance, far away from here, and if I can just add one more thing to the list of to-dos, I’ll be better. When the truth is I’m really ok as is.
A healthy woman is a quilt.
We are all pieces of one another. We hurt each other, we heal each other too. I don’t believe every female friendship is meant to be and that’s ok. Or it’s meant to be for some seasons and must fade away in others. Energies won’t always align 100% of the time, sometimes not at all.
I would love to get to a place where we don’t all have to align energies and form friendships to celebrate one another, but I’m not there yet. I see too many women glorifying some version of women supporting women in online spaces while manipulating and lacking accountability face-to-face. I have my own traits that don’t mesh easily across the board. I’d like to see this turned on its axis in my lifetime and I also need to honor I’m not seeing it yet.
As Leonard Cohen said, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” I have faith in the sentiment, but I’m gonna let myself move through this first.
*Bread and Roses originates from a speech given by Helen Todd, an American women’s suffrage activist in 1910. A line in her speech, “bread for all, and roses, too” inspired the title of a poem, Bread and Roses by James Oppenheim. Another prominent part of this speech:
Not at once; but woman is the mothering element in the world and her vote will go toward helping forward the time when life's Bread, which is home, shelter and security, and the Roses of life, music, education, nature and books, shall be the heritage of every child that is born in the country, in the government of which she has a voice.
— Helen Todd, 1910.
Originally sent to Substack subscribers in March 2023.
Hot Pink Sweater
She was both the art and the artist.
– Kingfisher Lane by Grant Gosch
Dear friend,
Have you tired of how often I ask what artist/mother’s you admire? Fatigue no further! I now know what I’m really seeking when I ask this question;
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Self. I have in mind who an artist/mother is, and I’m trying to be her.
I began asking what artist/mother’s you admire when I was pregnant because I needed verification that you can be a present mother and a practicing artist simultaneously. My own mother is an artist, but when I was the age that my daughter is now she was working at a bank. I have no recollection of those years and she hadn’t yet partaken on her artist journey. Even if that wasn’t the case, I’d still be asking everyone because I’m so intrigued by relationship dynamics and what motivates women when they make their life choices. The reasons are consistently layered, in response to a prominent woman in their life (even if subconsciously), and often universal. There is opportunity for great healing in these layers for me.
Anyway, the consensus I’ve gathered over many conversations with mothers and artists alike is that often when an artist first becomes a mother, they’re not practicing art as they knew it for the first couple of years. An artist is exuding all of her energy instead to the nourishment, safety, and financial security of their child. For artist/mother’s who’s financial security IS making & selling their artwork, I don’t know how they’re doing it. They don’t have much time for an interview with me.
A range of emotions is felt the first few years of child raising, from contentment to turmoil, based on personality, external circumstances, and family history. Looking back from a vantage point not too far away from the experience of having my first child, I land near turmoil. Much of what I’m writing, making, envisioning, discussing, has much to do with my healing & recovery in response to the turmoil endured.
It hasn’t been a comfortable place.
I had worked so hard to build a creative career that would hold me safely — financially and developmentally — and I was terrified of losing my career momentum for the vision I’d had with the life that was growing in my womb. I was trading certainty for uncertainty. I needed to know both artistry and motherhood could exist, at the same time, because I didn’t know who I’d be if it didn’t. I just knew I wouldn’t have any money.
I fought like hell to make it all work until my body screamed at me ENOUGH! We are not doing this anymore. She gave me an ultimatum: I had to choose between a salary and my sanity. I chose sanity and then I second-guessed it for the better part of a year.
It doesn’t look like other new mothers need to choose either/or, I thought. What’s wrong with me that I can’t juggle both like they are?, I berated myself. My boss didn’t take me seriously when I expressed my workload wasn’t sustainable, saying none of ours are…how was that helpful? I had an endless loop of fragmented thoughts keeping me up as the baby slept and then I’d be up when the baby was awake trying to make sound decisions for her. This also wasn’t sustainable. It felt like a lose-lose situation.
The tumult is WHY I write this letter.
I think I will find the answers about art, motherhood, and healing as I write them. As they unfold. I think the answers are me, living, and trying out a bunch of different things, relaying to you what I discover.
The truth is, when I quit my job with a 1-yr old and no career prospects around the corner, my biggest fear came true: I did not know who I was.
A very good place to begin, indeed.
Links for later:
Little notes of discovery I’m saving for later
Originally sent to Substack subscribers in February 2023.
Women’s Little Christmas
I’d like to propose the revival of an old Irish tradition — Nollaigh na mBan, pronounced ‘Null-ug-na-Mon’, or Women’s Little Christmas.
My research for this month’s letter started with Auld lang Syne — the popular Scottish poem that plays as the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve — then led me to Nollaigh na mBan, an old Irish tradition honoring women the following week on January 6. Which is today, dear friends, so let’s celebrate!
My inner rhythm is shifting to a more seasonally-inspired outlook, something I’ve minutely always felt within me, especially around the holiday season. It isn’t necessarily slower but is evolving in pace, value, and belief.
This past month of isolation caused by sickness has gifted me time to observe the frenetic pace of the holiday winter months. It’s deeply ingrained in the last few generations of my kith & kin, and our collective world. This year I had a reasonable excuse not to partake; mono followed by a sinus infection and then covid from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve – yep, that should do it!
What I discovered is something you might already know: The Twelve Days of Christmas does not end with Christmas. No, Christmas Day is the first of twelve days leading us to today, January 6. Those of you familiar with Catholicism know this as Epiphany. What this means to me, a gal looking to celebrate as much as I can in a year, is that festivities don’t have to end with a bang on Christmas Day or a hungover New Year’s. It can be a slow burn, a simmer through the beginning of January.
God rested on the seventh day but the women of Ireland didn't get to do the same until the twelfth and last day of Christmas.
— Irish Times Article, 6 January 1998
In County Cork, Ireland, today is not only Epiphany but it’s also Women’s Little Christmas. On this day, women traditionally took a much-needed rest after catering to everyone during the holiday festivities. Men of the household took care of the children and other domestic tasks while women of the community gathered for tea, cake, and a break. It’s having a revival beyond County Cork in Ireland, something akin to International Women’s Day.
It’s also the day of taking down the tree and Christmas decorations, and burning the dried branches, for taking them down before or after January 6 will bring bad luck for the rest of the year (source).
It's a custom which seems to have been passed on orally and informally, drifting down like feathers from one generation to the next. Few women spoken to for this article had read anything about Nollaig na mBan, but all had heard about it from other women or female family members - grandmothers, mothers, aunts.
— Irish Times Article, 6 January 1998
Like many female stories, traditions for Women’s Little Christmas were passed down orally from one generation to the next. While I know our female stories are often passed along verbally, especially in big moments like getting married and birthing children, I want this one written down.
As a new mother, I’ve forgotten to enjoy gathering with friends for the simple reason of holding the same space. Bring the children! but can we talk about something other than…the children? Letting them play without constant interference is highly likely to be welcomed by them as well.
While showing our children we’re working we can also show them we prioritize our leisure and friendships so they know how to mimic that too.
In my deep love for my child, the deep love for my Self has been put on the back burner on a stove that doesn’t even work, and that’s not sustainable for me or my child. The irony is that friendship is the very thing that reinforces my backbone so I can be the backbone of my household.
More importantly, it reclaims my worth for simply being me.
—
Photo of my Grandma & Grandpa Watz, Christmas 1962. This year’s Christmas card from my mother.
Originally sent to Substack subscribers in January 2023.
Closed for the Season
Hello friend,
Today’s the last full moon of 2022, be accordingly.
I’ll be soaking in her glow with a hike, tea, and a naptime dreaming up the reemergence of my studio (!) in the basement. There will be very little action towards it just yet considering a bout of some virus (not covid) I’m trying to recover from.
Four years ago, I invested in a program that, for the first time, had nothing to do with my professional life. It was the first time in five years of building my design business that I put any profit toward my own wellness. Not student loans, upgraded tech, or studio tools.
For the price I was paying a nutritionist I could purchase a larger hard drive. Or a flight to a design conference, or the design conference itself. I was hesitant, is what I’m saying. Not only did a nutrition program require an upfront cost but it required my commitment; to the process, to learning something new, and most of all a promise to my body that I would change for her. For us.
“I hope to be pregnant.”
Another first — I hadn’t spoken those words out loud to anyone but Joel until my consult with the nutritionist. We discussed it briefly from a health angle before I tucked it back into the folds of my safe inner world again. As if saying it out loud would jinx my chances.
The nutrition reset began as I traveled the nation for an event-planning team. I’ll never forget the plane ride home after a week-long event in Seattle; it was the closest I’ve ever physically been to the moon. Harvest full, like our wedding day.
“I don’t want to be floating above my life”, I told the moon. “I want to be boots on the ground in the thick of it.”
I was pregnant by the next full moon.
This is not a message of dreams coming true. It is a reminder of pace. How fast are you going? Why are you trying to get there so quickly?
For me — I was going at breakneck speed into a brick wall. Of course, I didn’t realize it was a brick wall. I thought it was a career. I thought it was what I always wanted but things kept happening that weren’t clicking into place, regardless of my loyalty toward it. The purpose of our generation is to unlearn the marketing.
Here I am again, reminding myself to check the pace. I didn’t expect to be here when the strenuous work schedule faded. Raising a young child has a way of filling the minutes of each day with an achingly slow place when you’re not used to it. So I’m frustrated; why isn’t my body working at full capacity?! I yell in hot tear moments.
I never kidded myself into thinking raising a child would be less work than past jobs but I didn’t think it would be so hard on my body. Raising our daughter is the most physical, emotional, and mental use of energy I’ve ever invested into anything.
The person this heavy lifting eludes the most is me.
The bright spot of this current struggle between body, spirit, and child-raising is how it leads me to places I enjoy. Places that were a mere background blur in the pace of my 20s as I was trying to keep up with…well, I forget now what or who I was trying to keep up with. Oh, the hindsight revelations I find in the aisle of a used bookshop! The revelations pile up next to my bedside table.
I may not know where I’m going next, but damnit if I’m not reading my way there.
Charles Bukowski’s gravestone reads “Don’t try”. It’s a signal of optimism to other artists in his odd little way. What you’re seeking is seeking you and if it’s not, don’t muscle through what isn’t meant for you.
There are seasons of trying, and seasons of resting.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés shares the necessity for rest in the context of her work with women heavily involved in social activism:
Whatever their idea of respite, even though they’re speaking from abject tiredness and frustration, I say that respite is a good idea, it is time to rest. To which they usually screech, “Rest! How can I rest when the whole world is going to hell right before my very eyes?”
But in the end, a woman must rest now, rock now, regain her focus. She must become younger, recover her energy. She thinks she cannot, but she can, for the circle of women, be they mothers, students, artists, or activists, always closes to fill in for those who go on rest leave. A creative woman has to rest now and return to her intense work later. She has to go see the old woman in the forest, the revivifier, the Wild Woman in one of her many leitmotifs. Wild Woman expects that the animus will wear out on a regular basis. She is not shocked that he falls through her door. She is not shocked when we fall through the door. She is ready. She will not rush to us in a panic. She will just pick us up and hold us till we regain our power again.
And neither should we panic when we lose our momentum or focus. But like her, we must calmly hold the idea and be with it a while. Whether our focus is on self-development, world issues, or relationship doesn’t matter, the animus will wear down. It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.[…]
For women, it is best if they understand that at the onset of an endeavor, for women tend to be surprised by fatigue. Then they wail, they mutter, they whisper about failure, inadequacy, and such. No, no. This losing of energy is at it is. It is Nature.
— Women Who Run With the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
She thinks she cannot, but she can.
Let this be your season of rest if you need. I’ll meet you there.
Originally sent to newsletter subscribers in December 2022.
The Gales of November
Hello friend,
Writing to you from the time warp that is the first week of potty training. This is to say, I don’t know what day it is. Not positive my head is, in fact, atop the neck.
But I am positive the baby bum is, in fact, on the potty. My work here is done.
Today is the day I honor the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and drag my family along with me. She sunk in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975 with all twenty-nine of her men. It’s one of the most tragic shipwrecks in Great Lakes history. The bell will toll twenty-nine times at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point tonight to honor each man, and a musician will sing The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot.
I’m unsure why this ship calls to me from the depths of Lake Superior but I honor her without question. Ritual assuages grief.
What is it about death and decay I am finding so heartrenchingly beautiful?
Mirror to my grief for so many things lost that bolstered me in my life until now. It is poetic to wax on about the metaphors of Winter’s compost leading to Spring’s blooming but many of us seek only the petals climax, ignoring the necessary precursor entirely.
The question is not how quickly and easily you can get what you want, but whether or not you’re ready to stick by it for years, even decades, until you arrive. The life of your dreams is not something you achieve, it’s something you build through your habits. To get there, you don’t need a temporary change in circumstances, you need a permanent change in your behavior. — via @wordsofwomen
Even Daylight Savings is a fickle human attempt to slow down the impending darkness. If all we ever celebrate is light, how will we know how to support one another through the shadows?
It’s a new behavior I’m trying on, this sitting in the shadows. So often do I seek solace in instant gratification but alas I’ve spent hours upon hours this week sitting on a stool in the washroom instead. She sits next to me. An instant later she stands claiming she’s done despite an empty bowl.
“Let’s wait,” I suggest.
Neither of us really wants to but for some reason she listens and sits back down; both guide and novice honoring the unseen. And that’s all we do, we wait without knowing the outcome.
Natural forces will kick in eventually.
They say the wave that took down the Edmund Fitzgerald was as tall as a three-story building. This was an unsinkable ship in a freshwater lake that is more truly a sea.
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the maritime sailors' cathedral
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald— The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot
I am just an onlooker, surrendering to the wave, thinking of Lake Gitchee Gumee.
Originally sent to newsletter subscribers in November 2022.
Practical Magic
Hello friend,
I made a joke a few weeks ago that for every good week, there are six rough ones to follow. Keeps ya humble, on your toes, you know. I said it cheekily but it’s shaping up to be true.
I’ll spare you all of the reasons why and leave the woeful details to my morning pages. I only have the length of a two-hour nap and I’m hoping for some of it to be dedicated to my annual viewing of Practical Magic.
This rut I’ve been trying to claw out of for a few years now may be offering me an opening rather than an ending. I was heartbroken when I felt forced to quit my job a couple of years ago but now that’s it been some time away from who that version of me was, I’m beginning to wonder if that needed to happen for a new path to open to me. Maybe all of these things I’ve identified with for so long — career, relationships, mindsets — needed to be cleared away so I can grab hold of a writing life as Nikki Gemmell writes in Dissolve.
Or maybe it’s how Anne Lamott says, “Other than writing, I’m completely unemployable.”
While I do not consider myself an academically-esteemed writer, or even a very good one at the frazzled moment, I can’t not write. It was just easier when things were, well, easier.
Golden, amber, and ochre hues of leaves drift to the ground around me. I will never see this exact leaf again. There will never be a duplicate budding, resting, dancing from the limb of a maple again in this lifetime. It is like that with people too; our loved ones, our pets, our soulmates, and people we see in town.
It’s deeply somber mixed with the joy that we are here to witness the final flash of harvest celebration. Two dichotomous emotions share the same chair. Death and birth. Grief and love. They weave in and out, they are friends. It is not divisive. It is nature.
Trees, especially in Autumn, are a good metaphor for how beauty is so fleeting. They will come back after a season of dormancy but they will not be the same. Fallen leaves before spring buds are connected by way of compost now feeding the roots. It’s void of mysticism—the logic of how trees cycle—and it is all mysticism when you stomp through the fallen crispness. A scent that will send you to the depths if you let it, and may you, see where it leads. Practical magic.
Despite my whining about how I have no time to myself anymore, how life with a two-year-old Gemini is a constant state of breakneck speed whiplash for this steady, systematic, glacial pace Mama, how I don’t know if I’ll ever have momentum in my career again (& do I even want it?) — I do think it will make sense someday. The spell may be for me to relinquish. And maybe just chill the fuck out.
The seed of the new is in the shell of the old.
— Susan Lipshutz Scorpio New Moon reading
I can’t wait around for the perfect moment to write what is clawing to get out. I can’t wait for when everyone understands me better, when I’m mad at fewer people, or when the child(ren) is grown, to say what feels inherent. My soul will dry up. It already has, you should see the wrinkles! and the thick coat of lotion I now have to apply for dehydration. Drink water you say? That would be too easy and get in the way of all my other more fun drinks.
I suppose I’ve droned on like the person I am these days. It feels good to ramble from an inner rhythm for a few moments before I’m back to saying, “I understand that might make you upset but you can’t have skittles for the fifth snack in a row,” before a slew of tears and tantrums commence.
Sometimes the right thing feels all wrong until it is over and done with.
— Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic
Don’t worry about me though.
My knight in sweatshirt armor will be home shortly. He will drive away in the SUV, bringing the Queen to her desired playground palace soon enough and this wornout damsel will lay on the broken couch saving images of homes she will not live in, well-tailored yet relaxed fits she cannot afford wearing to her secret Pinterest boards as Gilmore Girls reruns play in the background. A true connoisseur of inspiration and comfort television.
I don’t want this season to be done with, I mean maybe the broken couch could improve, but I’m a sucker for some clarity. Maybe I’ll find some if I keep writing through it.
The writer Gail Collins said that, for women, the ‘centre of our story is the tension between the yearning to create a home, and the urge to get out of it.’ It’s her story, my story, the female story. The complex annihilation of motherhood.
— Nikki Gemmell, On Quiet
Happy Samhain, witches.
Originally sent to newsletter subscribers in October 2022.
Shaky Bones
Hello friend,
This moment between moons you’ll find me in inner turmoil from lack of a morning routine. I’m mourning my routine…get it? Mom jokes aside (my teenage cousin vehemently believes are not funny): We’ve gone four weeks without a shower, a few days without a toilet, and have welcomed one very particular Polish man to tile the only bathroom in our house. Most of our interactions are me responding to his plea, “No more changes to the tile!” Ahhh, my own little slice of Under the Tuscan Sun, sans divorce or Italian villa.
The good thing about all this chaos is it’s making me notice something about my hip and pelvis pain — less routine, more inflammation.
Brief backstory: This Spring I started training for a half-marathon happening in the Fall. I was very deadset on running this half. I made it to three miles midsummer before I pinched a nerve in my right hip and could barely walk. I’ve been in physical therapy for my hip and pelvis ever since. The second time in two years I’ve had to quit training for this half-marathon.
I’m learning about pain, ego, and not being kind to my body. If only I could’ve run away from it, literally, like I WAS TRYING TO DO. Instead, I must sit with a tennis ball pushed into my right ass cheek and consider the emotions buzzing through this body of mine. My anger stems from feeling no one really cares what was required of me to bring a baby into this world, nor do they try to empathize with decisions I’ve made in response to having my first child knee-deep in a global pandemic. Or try to consider that I might be carrying around some emotional fallout from it all. Just another weight I’m expected to carry with style & grace, I suppose.
It’s so deeply threaded into our cultural language and expectations of women that this is just what women do, now be grateful for it damnit, that it feels like my actual, genuine emotions — this is both scary and sacred, I’m both grieving and elated — are just being glossed over. It’s on constant loop over a loudspeaker no one but me can hear. I want to point vehemently and say, Hello?! Did you hear that? How are you not hearing this?
Any time the topic of mothering, marriage, careers, finances, or pandemic comes up it further validates my piss-poor mood and that is how I know there is healing to be had. Before healing, you have to admit first that you are hurt. PT (physical therapy) diagnosis or not, I believe my inflammation will continue until I come to terms with this chapter of my life. I will have to keep deferring race tickets because the endless loop of the story we tell ourselves can help or it can hurt. That, & the physical exercises I’m being given each week to do at home.
My physical therapist had me sit on a yoga ball, engage my core, and lift my right leg up followed by my left. And, I could not do it.
“I don’t understand how I can go twenty-nine years having my body be strong without me thinking about it. Then I have a kid and now my body doesn’t know how to do anything. How does that happen?” I ask through hot tears of frustration after a round of seemingly simple exercises that have me out of breath and aching.
“You had a kid,” my physical therapist responds, “and you really just breezed right over saying that. Your tight abdominal, pelvic, and hip ligaments stretched further than they ever have before to hold a growing baby. The hormones helped you handle it but all of those have transitioned to a different state now. Those ligaments aren’t just going to snap back. You have to retrain them, and it would be good if you could be gentle with yourself about it.”
My muscles don’t trust me. They don’t believe I can hold my own weight, or whatever I’m lifting, so they tighten as a survival tactic. A sailor’s knot if I’ve ever seen one. This lack of trust is happening north of the initial pain as well. My head was telling my core to lift my leg on that yoga ball and nothing happened. It’s disconcerting to tell your body to do something and have her dismiss the request. Betrayal. So often this interaction between brain & muscle happens too fast to notice in a healthy mind-body connection. But when a part is not working as it should you see there are many steps required for one small action. To imagine all the steps I must take now to get back to that half; some days it depletes me. It depletes me most when I hobble home and there is no water to heal, to wash over this tired, achy body who is lifting her heart out of the car seat for the 100th time today.
I’m no anatomy expert and this will further prove that, but a large piece of my heart left the inner cavern of my ribs as I welcomed my daughter to the outside of me. She is morphed from my own skin, blood, and sinew and I was her container for a brief stint of forever. These bones are shaky as a result, my skeleton click-clacking away. I’m trying to get acclimated with a little less of me on the inside while trying to keep such a close eye on my heartpiece on the outside. And she is growing! Quickly. The weight increases steadfastly.
I imagine my stretched ligaments, my swollen muscles with all their little knots looking up to that ribcage of mine, to the shadows of the spine. They chatter,
We’re sorry we can’t hold you the way you need at the moment but the sound of those shaky bones, the way they chime, is a beautiful tune.
Mother music.
Woman rhyme.
A chorus of ancestors keeps me company.
—
Other things on my mind:
This summer my favorite book had to be The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George. Poetry in novel form, never read anything like it. Here’s the rest of my summer reading book list for your final beach reads before the frost comes (board books for littles are listed too).
I’m sharing more in bits and bobs because it’s my particular approach to healing. Write from the scar, not from the wound as Marlee Grace quoted in class last week. Uncomfortable as it is it keeps scratching to get out in this form. If today’s letter resonates, here’s another one.
If you read last month’s letter you know I’d like to write a book someday. And god damnit, listen to what happens next; Marlee Grace offers The Architecture of Book Writing class for three Sundays in September and I sign-up the very. next. day.
—
Say one thing you want to do this week, out loud. To your partner, your baby, your mother, your puppy or feline, or friend. Then, observe. See what happens when the trees hold your words. They are the best listeners.
Until next time, Em
Originally sent to newsletter subscribers in September 2022.
Summer book list 2022
A conversation with my mom the other day, in a frenzy where I was leaving my family for a remote corner of the world where no one would find me: “…and I have like 20 books I’m reading but I don’t remember which one’s I’ve started or where I’m at with any of them!”
“I’m the wrong person for this problem, I never know what book I’m reading!”
I’m a firm believer that the books on your shelf will tell me where you’re at in your life. One time we were staying at an aunt and uncle’s house who had recently uprooted their lives as empty nesters and had just moved into a new town. We were visiting, and the uncle I’ve always admired had his bookshelf near the basement guest room we were staying at. I snuck a peek at his current titles and it only made me admire him more.
A person’s bookshelf is nonverbal communication into the inner workings of their psyche. There, I said it! It is that deep & soulful. Let me offer you my inner psyche, ahem - summer bookshelf - for perusal:
Summer Book List
The Little Paris Bookshop – Nina George
Gift From the Sea – Anne Morrow Lindburgh (on repeat each summer)
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest – Suzanne Simard
Summer of ‘69 – Elin Hilderbrand (free little library near the park my daughter plays)
The Idle Parent: Why Laidback Parents Raise Happier & Healthier Kids – Tom Hodgkinson
Maiden to Mother: Unlocking our Archetypal Journey into the Mature Feminine – Sarah Durham Wilson
The Heroine’s Journey – Maureen Murdock
Women of the Bible: 25 Enduring Stories – Special LIFE Edition
If Women Rose Rooted – Susan Blackie
The Sand County Almanac – Aldo Leopold (free little library again, I must start giving books back!)
The Quilters, Women & Domestic Art – Patricia J. Cooper
Sunflowers, A Novel of Vincent Van Gogh – Sheramy Bundrick
Ya-Yas in Bloom – Rebecca Wells
Mama + Mini Book list (Toddler, 2yrs+)
We have graduated to library days where River is willing to go for the toys, and the toys only. When I encourage her to just pick out one book before going back to play, she has consistently grabbed titles to do with pooping, underwear, and any other excrement kids have coming out of their bodies before she returns to lego-building, rocking fake babies to sleep, and staring at older children. I like her style. Here’s what I choose for her to have my needs met at bedtime:
I Sang You Down From the Stars – Tasha Spillett-Sumner & Michaela Goade
Julían is a Mermaid – Jessica Love
Powwow Day – Traci Sorell & Madelyn Goodnight
Max and The Tag-a-Long Moon (she genuinely likes this one, gifted by Bebe) – Floyd Cooper
Babies in the Forest (board book) – Ginger Swift
No More Pacifier for Piggy! – Bernette G. Ford
Tallulah: Mermaid of the Great Lakes – Denise Brennan-Nelson & Susan Kathleen Hartung
Welcome, friend.
Hello friend,
I was starting my letters from the Spring with “Dear reader” but after a perusal of my subscriber list, I know most of you personally, & you are my friend. Some of us share high school memories, college, some of you from design ventures, some of you my mother’s friends or family who have been so wonderful to me, and some of you a bit more new to me as gals who married the guys that are my husband’s childhood friends.
The overlap is that many of us are mothers now, most are women, and a few of you are guy friends who talk art with me.
I thank you for reading these monthly letters.
Every part of me since September 2018 has shifted. Within one month, I was traveling the country as an event designer in the tech industry, having a run-in with a student threatening my safety in a college course I taught, discovering I was pregnant, and accepting a dream position with Chaco while simultaneously being invited to work on an event in the Netherlands on my due date, and training for my second half-marathon.
I say this not to brag (ok, maybe a little to brag) but to express that when the global pandemic happened and I was furloughed while pregnant and lost all my breastfeeding & delivery classes, and labored with an OB I didn’t trust to deliver my first baby while unsure if my partner could be with me during labor — well, I’ve changed. I imagine you have too. I know you have your own version of loss, grief, and exasperation with what has transpired over the last few years.
You’re welcome to share it with me if you’d like.
I need to write these letters about creativity, motherhood, and healing. I’ve sketched a Venn diagram where they all intersect that I’m much too private to share at the moment but know it’s my reference to go more in-depth in future letters.
Mainly because I’ve had many conversations with people having similar questions and thoughts as me. Whether it’s a distracted discussion on the playground with children pulling at our limbs, a one-liner in the checkout line during endless errand runs, or a text conversation spanning days, we are all asking one another — about our bodies after babies, about the intricacies of emotions with parenting, and the often humorous struggle to find a slice of solitude for our art. Or a nap.
Can I share with you a really far-out dream I have? I hope to write a book someday.
Until then, letters to you, my friend.
Have a wonderful weekend, Em
Originally sent to newsletter subscribers in August 2022.
Archiving as Artform
Dear reader,
Oh, these dog days of summer. Thick, humid heat. Let it lull you to laziness. The only movement to slap a mosquito, point out the firefly bouncing along the day-lilies.
Thanks for reading Emily Bode! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
I'm currently filling these moments muddling through a vulnerability hangover from a decade of writing in “real-time” online.
As the baby naps, I archive my Instagram, circa 2012. Often with the latest Real Housewives in the background (Mothers in the home who had your soaps, I see you.). It’s an arduous process but it heals me to stow past versions of myself away. We all go about moving to the next chapter in different ways. The point is, we must turn the page.
Next chapter I must go. The previous ones have been beautiful, so achingly sweet I don't want to release my grip. Like the muscle in my ass putting me into physical therapy and stopping me from training for a half-marathon — the pain will go away when you release the tension. Thank the literal pain in my ass for this wonderful life advice. Use it to your advantage. Otherwise, my bill is a waste, thank you.
As playwright Sarah Ruhl said to herself when she found out she was having twins:
All right then, annihilate me; that other self was a fiction anyhow. And then I could breathe. I could investigate the pauses.
I've since found a treasure trove of titles with mother as protagonist since I started actively digging. I keep adding to this list. For anyone thinking Mother is a boring storyline (it is rarely a Mother who thinks this), plot twist: these authors will prove you wrong before you finish the introduction.
A little astro weather report before I leave you to mosquito-scratching and firefly-scouting: today is the Leo New Moon, in the month of Leo Season, halfway through the Lion's Gate portal. Soak it in, express it out.
See you around August 11 full sturgeon moon (this is the day before my birthday & I am INCORRIGIBLE about celebrating my birthday for as long as I can, so just know this if I'm late to the inbox party next month).
Leo blessings, Em
Originally sent to newsletter subscribers in July 2022.
Two
Dear reader,
It’s a special week in the Bode household — our little Gemini turns two years old! I’ve been all emotions as I paint our porch and have frequent party-related outbursts at Joel. What about a child’s birthday that makes the most stable mother transform into a sea creature of lore?
My rational mind KNOWS River won’t notice the wool craft balls to signify cream not white mermaid pearls for the birthday banner. A ludicrous detail for a child who stays outside at all costs, even sleep at sunset. Especially sleep at sunset. Pinecones and dandelions would prove sufficient gifts as these are the gems she finds on our walks to the lake. The painstaking search for a freshwater mermaid book will go unnoticed on the shelf for a while.
As we celebrate River this week, we celebrate the depths. Two years ago it was Joel, me, and our newborn alone in an empty hospital wing. A budding family in an isolated world. We clung to one another desperately. We found light in those crevices. One year ago we flailed in exhaustion, scurrying to stay afloat as a single-income family. Our parents hosted birthday gatherings for their granddaughter at a week’s notice.
This year, our beloved Moon Lodge embraces the light that kisses our shadows. The cuddles that warm an emptiness now filled. Laughter like flowers in the breeze convinces the saddest of souls to fold hands in prayer again. May it be so for our little sunshine girl, this week and always. As she has given to us with her presence alone.
Some creative things worth sharing when I’m not crying in the backyard to Trevor Hall’s The Lime Tree:
Reading The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George.
What is her motive? Or is she a secondary character in her own tale? Is she in the process of editing herself out of her story, because her husband, her career, her children or her job are consuming her entire text? — The Little Paris Bookshop
The word Dune showed up for me at the beginning of 2022. Halfway through the year, a sacred moment at Sleeping Bear Dunes, held by dune. I’m intrigued with the synchronicity between dune and pelvic bowl.
When we are very clear that we want to shine—and if we want to know the Goddess, we want to shine—then we attract into our lives the kinds of relationships that help us do that. Until a woman has given herself permission to be fabulous, she will not find herself with partners who promote her ability to do so. — A Woman's Worth by Marianne Williamson
Watching Derry Girls, a teen sitcom set in 1990s Ireland during The Troubles. Drawn to it due to my desire to travel to Ireland and find an ancestor’s grave. Seasons 1 and 2 are on Netflix, and the final Season 3 is on Channel 4.
Type Nerds: This number 2 is set in Clarendon, a slab-serif typeface originally made in 1835 by Robert Besley. Named after the Clarendon Print Press in Oxford, England, home of the Oxford English Dictionary & the King James Version of the bible. My favorite part of Clarendon letterforms is the ball terminals.
Surprised at the crucial role of Groceries. A weekly keystone event that used to be a mundane act pre-children. To be in my 30’s discovering this (the privilege) is laughable. How I think about growing & gathering around food is changing & dare I say, exciting. Interesting to observe my systematic processes once used to get million-dollar events off the ground now tackling my grocery lists & meal-making with fervor.
Related reads: Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist
What are you up to creatively? I’ve lost touch with you. What’s inspiring you? Book you’re reading? Workshop you’ve signed up for? Whatever new thing you’re trying? Vacation you’re taking?! Hit reply & fill me in.
The world is on pause for me as I soak in this moment that River Grace entered this world. See you in your inbox next month, around the July 13 full buck moon.
Thanks for reading! Hope you soak in the Solstice this month, until next time, Em
Originally sent to newsletter subscribers in June 2022.
A Mother’s Embrace
Oh, how the comma looks like a mother's embrace.
Dear reader,
A few days ago our daughter skinned her knees. She tripped on concrete, tears followed, as did the cold water, ointment, and bandage. The following day, she tripped again. On concrete, again. She opened up the same wound that wasn't yet fully healed from the first fall. As I cradled and cooed her, the parallel became clear; I too have wounds not yet healed. They've been reopened before full recovery. It almost hurts worse than the original wound because the skin is more sensitive and tender from the initial fall. The reopening compounds the pain.
And so I think I will do for me what I instinctively do for River; cleanse, salve, bandage, cradle, coo. May it be so for you if you're in a similar space. Some creative things worth sharing:
Many themes of childhood & family resurfacing as evident in this post, written after a difficult week transferring River from crib to bed. My neighbor saw me reading The Artist's Way at the coffee shop and said, "One of those days, huh?". Oh yes, very much yes.
Current notetaking system:
• Google Keep color-coded notes
• Brief recap of key moments in my daily planner
• Index cards dated by month. Kind of like Anne Lamott's index card process, Austin Kleon's daily planner approach, & a touch of my own color-coding obsession. All I'm doing is scribbling notes "for later".If you can't find the book you want to read, write it. I can't write a book right now so I searched a little harder for these titles on motherhood. During this motherhood search maybe it would be more truthful to say I seek books about a woman's inner life.
Read Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick, a novel based on Vincent van Gogh's final two years in Provençal France, in preparation for this exhibit. Living vicariously through expat Jamie Beck's lense until we travel there. Adding The Yellow House to my 'to be read' list.
This month's full moon was a total lunar eclipse in the middle of Mercury Retrograde and a big sign transition with Jupiter. So many people are trudging through this moment with difficulty. I can't say I've found any solace through it but reading about it helps.
...the Goddess is returning, she is making her way up, & people without eyes to see will be completely in the dark about the journey of women all around them. As the Goddess begins to make their claim on them, there will be more, rather than fewer, girls who make no sense. — A Woman's Worth by Marianne Williamson
Watched the first season of The Gilded Age. Aunt Agnes' and Aunt Ada's sisterly relationship is as comical as it is dysfunctional.
Aunt Agnes: You are forcing me to reevaluate your character.
Aunt Ada, in response: I can't help that.Watched Turning Red multiple times. The symbolism is powerful, tough emotions are acknowledged, and the mother-daughter relationship is resoundingly relatable. What Jin, Mei's soft-spoken father, says to her before her ritual:
People have all kinds of sides to them. And some sides are messy. The point isn't to push the bad stuff away. It's to make room for it, live with it. — Jin (Turning Red)
Listening to The Marfa Tapes and Palomino. The Marfa Tapes would sound perfect on vinyl. Top three songs:
• I Don't Like It
• Actin' Up
• Country MoneyDipping my pinky toe in the world of letterpress but now I must get my hands dirty. Initial research has begun to acquire a press. "It's easy to forget how nearly everything printed before 1945 was produced on a letterpress of one style or another," from Letterpress Commons.
The GVSU graphic design department has a Vandercook Composing Room cylinder, circa 1912(?) just waiting for someone to get her humming again.This summer, I'll be at my favorite coffee shop near the harbor a couple of days each week. Sign up for a conversation over coffee with me if you're in town. Bring what you're working on, reading, or ideas with your art, and I'll share mine.
I love these yellow roses. Part of Jamie Beck's Rose Month in May.
Thanks for reading! See you in your inbox around the full Strawberry Moon (June 14ish).
Originally sent to newsletter subscribers in May 2022.
‘And per se and’
Dear reader,
You may wonder why you find this letter dropped on your digital doorstep out of the blue. Well, at some point since 2018, you signed up to hear from me. A lot has happened since then, a lifetime ago. Let's bid adieu if you've understandably moved on by now. Otherwise, continue on for a list of creative things worth sharing.
My nerdy passion for typography has been reignited after teaching type at a local university this winter. Do you know the one about the lovely 'and per se and'?
You troubleshoot, you're in conversation with yourself, & you keep going.
Over the last decade, I've developed my freelance process as a designer. Time dedicated to my art has been abbreviated, challenging me to tweak my process — trying out Anne Lamott's scattered index cards system. Intrigued by Austin Kleon's system of sharing, as I realize I don't have a sequence for distilling information, and maybe his approach can help my daily writing practice. When I begin to overthink it all, Steven Pressfield's no bullshit approach brings me back to just. do. the. damn. thing. already.
I'll have a bed dressed in bright blankets
and embellished quilts to spark your sweat
and set it spilling until it chases
the chill that you've been given.A few lines from the greatest poem in 18th century Ireland sewn seamlessly into my new-old interest in quilting.
Ēostre, goddess of the growing light of Spring. Celebrating these early days of the Spring Equinox in simple ways; painting boiled eggs, fresh tulips for a wee bunny's birthday, and holding space for multiple creation stories. She has risen, indeed.
Is it really that bad if we don't cater to our two-year-olds every whim?
If members of Gen X can blame their high rates of depression and anxiety on latchkey parenting, and if millennials can blame their high rates of depression and anxiety on helicopter parenting, then perhaps a new generation can anticipate blaming their high rates of depression and anxiety on the overvalidation and undercorrection native to gentle parenting. — The Harsh Realm of Gentle Parenting
This summer, I'll be at my favorite coffee shop near the harbor a few days each week. Sign up for a conversation over coffee with me if you're in town. Bring what you're working on, reading, or ideas with your art, and I'll share mine.
Thanks for reading! See you in your inbox at the next full moon (May 16, full Flower Moon).
Until next time, Em
PS. April is national letter-writing month. The paper you write your letters & invitations on is called stationery, with an e.
Originally sent to newsletter subscribers in April 2022.
A Rare Family
I was out the door with my copy of The Artist’s Way in the passenger seat before I noticed grabbing it.
It was a sleepless night; partly because of the wine, mostly because the little one was wide awake from witching hour until the dawn bird’s first song. I woke up dreadful. Unfulfilled, angry, resentful. It’s the booze, the baby, most definitely the sleeping husband just laying there. Luckily the first chapter kicked in quicker than caffeine and forced me to find the core fault.
“Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.”
I’m fatigued with each foot dipped in separate pools. It’s like I have 10 feet! and they’re all tripping over each other. One hour I’m submerged in my career, the next I’m negotiating crackers with a toddler to get in the fuckin’ car sweetheart. Negotiating isn’t my strong suit. Toddlers are like dogs, they sense your insecurities and they pounce. My daughter eats a lot of crackers, is what I’m saying.
I may be the matriarch of this schedule for my daughter but don’t assume I like it every day. The years go fast so hold on to every moment they say as if that will stop my tears on random Sundays as her independence grows. That does not help the constant push-pull heartbreak-happiness that your child is healthy & growing…away from you if you’re doing it right. Big eye roll to the stereotypical Mom advice that isn’t advice but a passive-aggressive veil to not talk about the dichotomies we’re so clearly living in. Let’s skirt by the loud disruptive screaming in the room that some of these early days just aren’t fulfilling. Some of these days feel like you’re trying to get that spring-loaded wiggle worm back in the can and sit still for a second. It doesn’t mean you’re an ungrateful Mother to admit that. Your child still feels loved by you and wants to “hold you Mama” when the last dusk bird coos her babies to nest at night.
My mom is my biggest mother example. She didn’t have the life of an unlived parent while raising and childrearing. Not that that hasn’t brought challenging conversations with her now that I’m an adult trying to raise a child, but thank goddess she showed me a Mother deserves a life of her own in addition to being a Mother and she needn’t grovel for it at every turn. The child will have to fall in line with that to some degree as a result. This is an unpopular opinion, I’m sure. It’s insinuated in multitudes that Mother is the ultimate goal instead of a welcomed layer bestowed upon the already multi-faceted woman. When I wondered if we couldn’t have children, Mother was the ultimate goal so I appreciate and understand that season. I was that season and could be again, this is not either-or. I guess I’m just trying to navigate this mother layer in tandem with the artist layer I’m just not willing to give up and I can’t pause any longer. I’m of the belief this will benefit my daughter when she stops bugging me about the crackers.
“A rare family, faced with the myth of the starving artist, tells its children to go right ahead and try for a career in the arts. Instead, if encouraged at all, the children are urged into thinking of the arts as hobbies, creative fluff around the edges of real life.”
I’m grateful I’m part of this rare family Cameron explains. The blank stares and polite changes of the subject have reinforced this in many conversations throughout my life so far. Like the ugly duckling who doesn’t know they’re beautiful because they’re hanging out with a different bird species. Now that I’m a Mother, I know this wasn’t a family default I was born into.
It was my Mother.
She crafted it. She fought like hell for it. Together with my Dad, they made our family’s environment a breeding ground for dreaming and acting upon it throughout their many lived lives as our parents. I was the child who got to witness worlds before I ever left the nest.
Keep those feet in all those different pools. Your child’s inner artist may look back on their rare family with gratitude someday. After the therapy sessions, of course.