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
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.
Touch
What do you spend your days touching?
My child’s hand.
Whole vegetables, chopped and steamed.
The pen. The paper. The favored candle in amber glass.
Skin. His. Mine.
I smile at the irony.
All this time seeking in my mind what my body spends the entirety of her day holding.
There is nothing more to do.
A Mother's Embrace
Is writing really a bad idea?
I guess it is a bad idea the same way having kids is a bad idea. Your heart will break and there will be tears and you are so tired all the time. And yet. There is also bliss. Unimaginable joy. Euphoria.
There is LIFE in all its twisted glory.
Keep on writing…—but not for success. Write to tell us your truth.
— Kati Helsinki, in a letter to Steven Pressfield
My truth — the last two-ish years I’ve been enthralled in birthing, and subsequently raising, our child. I have been roaming another world completely. I’m softly returning from a landscape of labor, trauma, pain, mysticism, magic in the mundane, anxiety, overwhelm, the deepest love, a daughter who holds the key. I faced death and therefore life. Deep tearing throbs still, breast as nourishment, wild desire, fevers, chills, a range of excrements that leave the body from clear to opaque, milky to bloody. I’m unsure if I’ve fully returned from the underworld or if the work of transformation is still happening. Maybe it always will be from here on out. From maiden to mother.
It’s all a mess and it’s the deepest being alive I’ve ever known.
The message sent to me is that these stories are for the privacy of a medical room. They are not for meal-time monologues, coffee chats, and surely not for women or men who are not parents.
It’s been my experience that the medical room is too bright, sterile, masked, and devoid of the warmth and rawness this trip through transformation requires. Not all of the doctors and nurses are to blame, they are overworked and underslept in this season of pandemic but the patient has to deal with the fallout somehow. This story needs holding. It can not be thrown into the receptacle next to used N95s and forgotten rubber gloves.
This story needs a Mother’s embrace.
The best vessels
There is less time to obsess away these days, with a little one in tow. You would think this would make writing easier but it has paralyzed me instead. I’ve come closer to understanding why with Brian Eno’s take on surrender and control, via Austin Kleon:
“We’ve tended to think of the surrender end as a luxury, a nice thing you add to your life when you’ve done the serious work of getting a job, getting your pension sorted out. I’m saying that’s all wrong.
”I don’t know if you’ve ever read much about the history of shipbuilding?” Not a word. “Old wooden ships had to be constantly caulked up because they leaked. When technology improved, and they could make stiffer ships because of a different way of holding boards together, they broke up. So they went back to making ships that didn’t fit together properly, ships that had flexion. The best vessels surrendered: they allowed themselves to be moved by the circumstances.
“Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.””
The best vessels surrendered. They let themselves be moved by the circumstances. I am in a season of surrender and it is uncomfortable. We are taught control will bring us what we seek because we will have chased after it and wrestled it to the ground. There is a tempting veil of certainty in this approach to everything from selecting the next job to following the Google map to your next destination. We can make whatever we want surrender to us. This is only one side to the story. And I’m on the other side; surrender.
So many moments up to this point in my life have been about controlling the outcome. I’m very good at control, most people are when they’re telling everyone else what to do. Now I’m in a season of surrender without any tools or guidance. Surrender doesn’t come equipped with tools or guidance. Are there any companies, sports teams, armed forces being taught how to lose properly? The definition of surrender suggests it is negative and you do not want to be the one surrendering. It is described as being a victim, a weakness, losing to an opponent or an authority figure.
While these are all true instances of surrender, I am focusing on the surrender of my internal, personal life. My direct experience of the last couple of years as of late where my body was at the mercy of pregnancy, my career at the mercy of the white man’s bottom line, and our world at the mercy of an unknown pandemic.
It’s the first time I’ve had to truly acknowledge the hard truth that many women have learned earlier than me; I am less than in the eyes of society because of my gender. That’s a lot to unpack, a lifetime’s worth. What I’m getting at, in Enos’ metaphor of the surfer, is there is a time for control, a time for surrender to the elements, and a time for control again, and the cycle goes on. I am not in the control part, I am learning how to surrender to the elements, and I must admit — I kinda like it.
Like a well-flexing vessel, I need to find the function of being intentionally bent so that I don’t sink.
Motherhood Book List
I'm obsessed with searching for authors, artists, and stories of motherhood with Mother as the protagonist. It's become a hobby of mine when the baby sleeps. Like an archaeologist excavating for lost bones to discover an answer to history, to fill in the blanks. I am searching for depth that will make me feel seen.
A storyteller that will speak her truth even if it makes her look bad. Even if it makes her liked less. I am searching for a mirror. This compiled list is what I've excavated so far:
Non-Fiction
A Ghost in the Throat
Doireann Ní Ghríofa
The prose begins, “This is a female text.”
“Composed while folding someone else’s clothes”, this is a work that is intensely domestic, encompassing the sweet mundanities of banana goo and toast crusts as well as the pains of birth and death. The rhythm of the text, its circling back to the routines of young motherhood, the tolls on and triumphs of the body, anchor A Ghost in the Throat firmly in the present, even as its imaginative forays into the past swoop and dive.
The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Memoir of Early Motherhood
Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich’s first major work of nonfiction, the New York Times-bestselling The Blue Jay’s Dance brilliantly and poignantly examines the joys and frustrations, the compromises and insights, and the difficult struggles and profound emotional satisfactions the author experienced in the course of one twelve-month period—from a winter pregnancy through a spring and summer of new motherhood to her return to writing in the fall. In exquisitely lyrical prose, Erdrich illuminates afresh the large and small events that every parent will recognize and appreciate.
The introduction immediately makes me feel seen.
Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself
Lisa Marchiano
“Motherhood is the true hero’s journey―which is to say that it can be as harrowing as it is joyful, and enlightening as it is exhausting. For Jungian psychoanalyst Lisa Marchiano, this journey is not just an adventure of diaper bags and parent-teacher conferences, but one of intense self-discovery.”
Written in the ‘70s yet frustratingly relevant in 2021. Censoring textbooks sound familiar?
Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy
by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae
“Examining racial segregation from 1920s to the 1970s, Mothers of Massive Resistance explores the grassroots workers who maintained the system of racial segregation and Jim Crow. For decades in rural communities, in university towns, and in New South cities, white women performed myriad duties that upheld white over black: censoring textbooks, denying marriage certificates, deciding on the racial identity of their neighbors, celebrating school choice, canvassing communities for votes, and lobbying elected officials. They instilled beliefs in racial hierarchies in their children, built national networks, and experimented with a color-blind political discourse. Without these mundane, everyday acts, white supremacist politics could not have shaped local, regional, and national politics the way it did or lasted as long as it has.”
Anne’s dry humor makes me ok that I don’t have a toxic positivity approach to motherhood.
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year
by Anne Lamott
“The most honest, wildly enjoyable book written about motherhood is surely Anne Lamott's account of her son Sam's first year. A gifted writer and teacher, Lamott (Crooked Little Heart) is a single mother and ex-alcoholic with a pleasingly warped social circle and a remarkably tolerant religion to lean on. She responds to the changes, exhaustion, and love Sam brings with aplomb or outright insanity. The book rocks from hilarious to unbearably poignant when Sam's burgeoning life is played out against a very close friend's illness. No saccharine paean to becoming a parent, this touches on the rage and befuddlement that dog sweeter emotions during this sea change in one's life.”
Feels like a mix between Motherhood: On Facing & Finding Yourself and The 13 Original Clan Mothers
Landscape of Mothers
by Jill Doneen Clifton
“Landscape of Mothers is a map of the places I had to go in my inner world to reclaim my Self inside my role of mother. The landscapes are the map locations: sun and moon, wind, desert, island, mountain, river, forest, and ocean. Each location has a gift that is important for mothering. For instance, Wind Mother has the gift of trust, Forest Mother's gift is belonging, and River Mother's gift is purpose. Just like when you take a trip, Landscape of Mothers offers a directory of possibilities, but doesn't determine your experience. There are "itineraries" to choose from, but the experience is your own to create.”
Another keeper for the bookshelf to always have on hand. It isn’t as explicitly about Motherhood like the others in the list but Kimmerer’s story about being a mother to her daughters are woven throughout.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
by Robin Wall Kimmerer
“Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.”
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest
Suzanne Simard
Simard writes — in inspiring, illuminating, and accessible ways — how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they perceive one another, learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, and remember the past; how they have agency about the future; elicit warnings and mount defenses, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies--and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them.
I turn to this book each month around the full moon.
The Thirteen Original Clan Mothers
by Jamie Sams
“Jamie Sams, a member of the Wolf Clan Teaching Lodge, brings us a powerful new method for honoring and incorporating native feminine wisdom into our daily lives. Combining a rich oral tradition—passed on to her by two Kiowa Grandmothers, Cisi Laughing Crow and Berta Broken Bow—with the personal healing and guidance she has experienced through her female Elders, Sams created The 13 Original Clan Mothers. Each of the Clan Mothers reflects a particular teaching, relates to a cycle of the moon, and possesses special totems, talents, and gifts that can help each of us cultivate our own personal gifts and talents.”
This is a textbook for doulas, midwives, etc. so it’s difficult to find in any Michigan libraries. It’s the only title I’ve found on the topic.
When Survivors Give Birth
by Penny Simkin
“When Survivors Give Birth is written for a mixed audience of maternity care professionals and para-professionals, mental health therapists and counselors, and women survivors and their families. The authors expertly and compassionately address the unusual and distressing challenges that arise for abuse survivors during the childbirth experience.”
There was a riff between Will Smith and Janet Hubert, the original Vivian Banks in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and this books explains why and more of Hubert’s struggle in Hollywood.
Perfection is Not a Sitcom Mom
by Janet Hubert
“From the hardscrabble streets of Chicago's south side to the famed Juilliard school to the bright lights of Broadway, I thought I had seen it all. There were crack dealers, understudies who'd put needles in your dance shoes, and backstage cat fights with some of the theatre's most brilliant divas. But through it all I not only survived, I thrived. Then came the chance to become a sitcom mom on what would become one of the most successful TV sitcoms of the 90s, THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR. Sounds like the perfect script for the perfect Hollywood ending, right? Well not exactly.”
My mind is being blown and I’ve only just started this book.
When God Was a Woman
by Merlin Stone
“In the beginning, God was a woman...
How did the shift from matriarchy to patriarchy come about? In fascinating detail, Merlin Stone tells us the story of the Goddess who reigned supreme in the Near and Middle East. Under her reign, societal roles differed markedly from those in patriarchal Judeo-Christian cultures: women bought and sold property, traded in the marketplace, and inherited title and land from their mothers. Documenting the wholesale rewriting of myth and religious dogmas, Merlin Stone describes an ancient conspiracy in which the Goddess was reimagined as a wanton, depraved figure, a characterization confirmed and perpetuated by one of modern culture's best-known legends ― that of the fall of Adam and Eve. Insightful and thought-provoking, this is essential reading for anyone interested in the origin of current gender roles and in rediscovering women's power.”
There are recipes, generational wisdom, and gentle advice sprinkled in. A book worth purchasing to always return to in motherhood.
The First Forty Days: The Art of Nourishing the New Mother
by Heng Ou
“The first 40 days after the birth of a child offer an essential and fleeting period of rest and recovery for the new mother. Based on author Heng Ou’s own postpartum experience with zuo yuezi, a set period of “confinement,” in which a woman remains at home focusing on healing and bonding with her baby, The First Forty Days revives the lost art of caring for the mother after birth.”
Another go-to for a new mother’s bookshelf. Read this in my final hours before labor so I may be biased but I doubt it. Erica Chidi also founded Loom, educational content about our sexual & reproductive well-being. Hallelujah.
Nurture: A Modern Guide to Pregnancy, Birth, Early Motherhood and Trusting Yourself and Your Body
by Erica Chidi
A comprehensive and judgement-free pregnancy companion: Nurture is the only all-in-one pregnancy and birthing book for modern mothers-to-be and their partners who want a more integrative approach. Author Erica Chidi Cohen has assisted countless births and helped hundreds of families ease into their new roles through her work as a doula. Nurture covers everything from the beginning months of pregnancy to the baby's first weeks.
Novels (Fiction)
Nightbitch: A Novel
by Rachel Yoder
A friend & I are reading this together this month. Grab a book, grab a friend!
“An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband, who travels for work five days a week, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms….An outrageously original novel of ideas about art, power, and womanhood wrapped in a satirical fairy tale, Nightbitch will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition. And you should. You should howl as much as you want.”
Started reading this week. It is hard to read for how true it is and it is so beautifully written.
Shallow Waters
by Anita Kopacz
“Shallow Waters imagines Yemaya, an Orïsha—a deity in the religion of Africa’s Yoruba people—cast into mid-1800s America. We meet Yemaya as a young woman, still in the care of her mother and not yet fully aware of the spectacular power she possesses to protect herself and those she holds dear. The journey laid out in Shallow Waters sees Yemaya confront the greatest evils of this era; transcend time and place in search of Obatala, a man who sacrifices his own freedom for the chance at hers; and grow into the powerful woman she was destined to become. We travel alongside Yemaya from her native Africa and on to the “New World,” with vivid pictures of life for those left on the outskirts of power in the nascent Americas.”
My god do I love this book. I will read this again and again.
Circe
by Madeline Miller
“In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child - not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power - the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.”
I’m a spiritual, not religious, person and still find this story so valuable.
The Red Tent
by Anita Diamant
“In the Bible, Dinah's life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that tell of her father, Jacob, and his twelve sons.
The Red Tent begins with the story of the mothers—Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah—the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that sustain her through childhood, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate connection with the past.”
It wasn’t explained to me how this was anything to do with Motherhood when I first read it, and it made it all the better so I’m not disclosing either. Moyes is a fantastic storyteller.
The Giver of Stars
by Jojo Moyes
“Based on a true story rooted in America’s past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope and epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, enthralling, it is destined to become a modern classic–a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.”
The amount of people who have recommended this book! I’m not interested in it just by reading the description but I will trust the recommendations!
The Four Winds — reader recommended
by Kristin Hannah
“My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.”
From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them.
Even more rare to find a mother-daughter combination writing about each’s experience, excited to read!
Traveling with Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story — reader recommended
by Sue Monk Kidd & Ann Kidd Taylor
A wise and involving book about feminine thresholds, spiritual growth, and renewal, Traveling with Pomegranates is both a revealing self-portrait by a beloved author and her daughter, a writer in the making, and a momentous story that will resonate with women everywhere.
Short Prose
Mother Tongue is a biannual print magazine that interrogates (and celebrates) modern motherhood through diverse and inclusive stories about art, sex, pop culture, politics, food and a few things in between.
It’s not about kids or how to parent them: it’s about the nuanced lives we are living—as mothers, and much more.”
Issue 1 is already sold out but their Instagram is a close second until Issue 2 hits stands.
The Fisherwoman's Daughter, 1988 Essay
by Ursula K. LeGuin
I struggle to define briefly the pull I felt the day I discovered LeGuin’s essay, The Fisherwoman’s Daughter, in the coffee shop.
I found this free version of the essay after stumbling into this article, also feeling seen by this author and her synopsis of the essay.
Since this was recommended I’ve seen Smith’s other books, Keep Moving and Goldenrod at every store, I swear.
Good Bones — reader recommended
by Maggie Smith
“A book of poetry. Poems written out of the experience of motherhood, inspired by the poet watching her own children trying to read the world like a book they've just opened, knowing nothing of the characters or plot.”
This will probably be a growing list as I discover more titles.
The Human Experience
We walked the trail tonight, catching up after a long day of daycare drop-off, working at home, tedious errands after coffee; idiosyncrasies of new parenthood amidst a global pandemic. The pandemic lingers for new parents with infants and toddlers, the unvaccinated.
The trail provides a salve to anxieties, fear, and lethargy. Let's blame the pandemic and all that has come out of the woodwork, indeed. As a new mother, I have an inkling this is simply the beginning. Regulating all my worries and concerns in hopes my daughter will always be safe. In hopes she lives beyond my time here on Earth.
The sun drops between the rustling of almost turned maples, oaks, and walnut trees, pure gold. I let the internal chatter of all that is not subside for now. It is our greatest secret here, a large peninsula tucked between the lakes. Autumn sunsets when all the tourists disperse.
Those beyond these freshwater seas are always surprised by their expanse upon visiting. They imagine man-made ponds in their grandparents' backyard, a natural spring-fed pool on the outskirts of land flattened by agriculture.
No, not these Great Lakes — Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Lady Superior. Over 6,000 ships have met their ill-fated journey when the thirty-foot waves blow through. When the winds force snow and ice from the Northeast, most notably in November. These lakes are a sacred graveyard to thousands of captains, sailors, and voyageurs.
As I walk near their shores, witnessing a sunset that passerby will never know exists — my treasure for staying — it is more beautiful because I know the power of this water at its horizon. Is it more sacred due to the knowledge that the lake will conjure up anger as fall transitions to winter? She is threatening, and she is soft. Both emotions and more subtleties held in her blue hues. The natural neons of sunset tell me so.
We are walking our daughter. She is one year old and needs our hands to guide her; Mama on the left, Daddy on the right, fallen leaves below tracing every step closer to independence. I relish being needed by her. This time of dependency is fleeting. The next step, of course, is that she walks without the steady guidance of our arms. A transition similar to the one Lake Michigan is about to put all of us through. You can prepare to the best of your ability for the storm, but it will still do a number on you. I hold her chunky fingers tightly as if my squeeze could stop time.
Up ahead, there is an older woman with a walker. It holds her up like we hold up our daughter, her human walkers. A physical message; my squeeze does not have the power to halt the clocks as much as I try.
There is not much time to linger as her little legs power ahead in pure joy. She hasn't grasped the concept that she will faceplant into all the crunchy leaves and concrete without our hands to guide her. I continue, but I keep looking back at the older woman as we pass by, unable to shake the message that how we begin, we end. Cyclical.
The old oak sleeps and awakes come Spring.
As the woman's bent legs shuffle, supported by her steel walker, I long for someone to hold her hand instead. Heartbeats holding heartbeats. Someone who loved her or loved by her in a distant time. Like we held our young child's hands in support nearby. Reciprocity.
The core of human sadness is our disregard for honoring our Elders. We are too distracted or impatient to hear their wisdom, heed warnings from their mistakes, or listen to the rhythm of human patterns. It has slipped our conscious that we will soon be the Elder if we're lucky. Won't it be beneficial to know what is on the trail up ahead? To have a starting point to work from, whether we use it to repeat their patterns, banish them, or expand upon them. To make it better for the next tree buds preparing for their grand entrance.
I hope someone I love will walk me down the trail when I can no longer hold myself up. When I am old and gray and hopefully in the Crone season of my life.
As we putter along, they will listen to me babble, keeping my story alive. I am passing it on for safekeeping, for it to be retold. Maybe it will be my daughter. A Mother now in her journey. In the middle, where life teems with so much fullness, she'll hardly notice our secret sunset as she supports me.
I will look up the trail in time to see a little Maiden-in-the-making toddling along, held by the strength, safety, and support of her parents. Her face is bright with exuberance at her new tricks. She squeals with glee.
My neck will bend to see my old feet shuffle, happy with the full circle of human experience. The lake winds will blow as they always do. The maple leaves will rustle, a lullaby to the tune of a golden sunset. I hear them crunch beneath my soles and hers as the little one walks by.
Summer book list 2021
“Keep going, keep going, keep going.”
James Patterson gave this response to Lauren Graham’s question “How do you do it"?” at a casting dinner. She was referencing his accolades as an author & relays the interaction in her book, Talking As Fast As I Can.
My head is in the weeds. The minutiae of motherhood. In my defense, I wasn’t seeking motherhood in the middle of a global pandemic but it’s what I was given so in the weeds I’ve been as a result.
I prefer Austin Kleon’s take — I’m dormant. Waiting for the next cycle of bloom. Waiting is not my specialty. It requires faith. People craving control aren’t comfortable trusting what they can’t see, or what they don’t know, because it requires the exact opposite of what they do to feel safe. Anyways, this waiting for what I don’t even know what I’m waiting for has paused my writing until I know more. This is a mind game, of course, but I’m working through it; a summer sabbatical full of beach mornings, The Real Housewives franchise, & midnight panic attacks every so often.
This pause, however, has been wonderful for reading books. A social media hiatus freed up pockets of time formerly invested in aimless scrolling. Time scrolling was replaced with turning tangible pages of beach reads, historical fiction, local history, & that damn self-help category that keeps finding its way to my shelves. My summer book list, in chronological order kind of:
Summer Book List
The Genius of Birds – Jennifer Ackerman (part of WMEAC Book Club)
The Paris Library – Janet Skeslien Charles
Gift From the Sea – Anne Morrow Lindburgh (on repeat each summer)
The Stepford Wives – Ira Levin (part of Marcie Davis Walkers Black-Eyed Bible Study)
Women of the Grand: Their Legacy – Wallace K. Ewing
Summer on the Bluffs – Sunny Hostin
For the Love – Jen Hatmaker (gifted)
The Summer Wives – Beatriz Williams
The Montessori Toddler – Simone Davies
Workparent – Daisy Dowling
Cribsheet – Emily Oster
Talking As Fast As I Can – Lauren Graham
Mama + Mini Book list (12-15mths infant)
River enjoys racing to the end of a book to make the noise of slamming it shut, lest you think we have a 1-year old scholar. But honestly, why do we put these weird pressures on infants? To calm any unnecessary comparisons, please note this book list is compiled of titles me & family members have picked out for her:
Where the Buffaloes Begin (free from daycare) – Olaf Baker
We Are Water Protectors – Carole Lindstrom
Into the Forest (gifted), board book – Laura Baker
Besos for Baby: A Little Book of Kisses, board book – Jen Arena
World of Eric Carle, My First Library: 12 board books set (gifted) – Eric Carle
For My Mother
I’ve taken to reading leisurely by tree light as my family sleeps.
A line I will read one day amidst a pile of frustrating work I don’t want to be doing that just might change the trajectory of my choices.
But tonight, it simply is what I’m doing.
I start here. And then I click link after guided link because clicking on Austin Kleon’s writing rarely leads me astray. Suddenly, I find myself here, & then here. Ope, now I’m over here.
A pattern I’ve found in three dedications now — all completely unrelated topics —
For my mother.
It seems there are many authors who probably aren’t calling their mother as much as they think about calling her yet she is the thread throughout their life anyway.
The foundation I lay for my daughter now might make it into a dedication one day. It won’t even be my name but the rather generic, uncapitalized, word that defines millions of women. But it doesn’t really matter to me what the word is, just that my daughter says it, & the meaning it carries for her.
This is the true work.
Not to be in a dedication one day, oh no. Those are expectations I will not put upon her.
But on the days when I’m receiving pressure from external forces — day job, in-laws expectations, montessori — may I recall that rarely are dedications made to any of those things.
For my mother: the result of a presence not your burden to make others understand. Because they may never. But she will always.
Top Nine 2020
Top Nine 2020
Formerly known as Best Nine, the Top Nine of Instagram results are in. The top 9 posts on Instagram, based on likes, are selected for the year. I haven’t seen anyone post these this year so I’m guessing it’s not cool anymore. I still enjoy seeing my grid at the end of each year though so here we are.
2020
2.2k likes in 44 posts
50 likes/post
The amount I posted this year decreased by 50% & with that likes/post decreased. My Instagram account was completely private in 2020. I didn’t use it as a portfolio or blog aggregator like in past years. The numbers fairly reflect that. I’m more private about my daily life as of late. I thought less app time meant less influence but I’m sad to admit that wasn’t the case. Instagram is a consumerist machine now, by design (eww.), & I no longer wouldn’t or couldn’t keep up with the rat race. Working in marketing for a retail brand made it hard to leave entirely. It’s a key indicator of our online audience which affects my role on the team. I engaged with it less this year personally though due to pregnancy, new mamahood, & the pandemic. It was a relief to think for myself again; my self-worth was attached to Instagram success a lot in 2017-2018. Since then I’ve worked hard to intentionally & routinely set stronger boundaries with it. Creeps up on ya if you’re not careful!
About 40% of top photos were pregnancy photos, 30% about discovering my family values in real-time, with another 30% of photos related to having a career during early motherhood. That’s 100% of photos related to a woman’s journey to motherhood. Very accurate because motherhood is all-consuming. It affects everything from the woman as an individual to her marriage, her relationship with her family, how she wants her immediate family to grow in partnership with her partner, & her career.
Most of the posts I wrote during my maternity leave this summer were deleted but if they hadn’t been, they were some of my top posts. It suddenly felt too personal to have my daughter’s face with my tender thoughts meant for her only, displayed for everyone to peer into. I was getting to know her for the first time after 10 months of anticipation. The blue light glaring in her nursery felt exploitative so I put our photos with my words elsewhere for safekeeping. Not before Mamas sent notes of love, encouragement, & optimism that only one Mother can give to another though. I leaned HEAVY on the Mama IG community of mine in the final weeks of pregnancy & the first months of Mamahood. I have no regrets. If it wasn’t a pandemic, I probably wouldn’t have but my Mama friends are the one thing about Instagram I’m truly grateful for this year.
“Together” | Artwork by Quentin Monge
My 2020 IG goal was to follow accounts with unpopular opinions, strong messages, & inspiration. Girl did I. If 2019 was about minimizing who I followed to under 100 accounts, 2020 was about maximizing my followship double-fold. I followed more people who don’t look like me, AKA basic white bitches. I renewed my childhood love for the WNBA, am here for intersectional environmentalism, oogling over Pattiegonia, & getting my white privilege checked by Dr. Kiona. Following doesn’t do much by way of tangible change but reading people’s stories changes the landscape of our minds and from there new worlds are created. I’m hopeful for what’s on the horizon by way of empathy, compassion, & sensitivity. This is really for no one but me, just happy to recognize a personal goal realized.
2021
I honestly wonder if I’ll even have an Instagram in 2021. I’ve been holding onto it because I put so much work into it in the past that I thought deleting it completely would feel like a waste of all my time. But now, Instagram is just in the way of my actual life. An added obligation on my already endless list I can’t keep up with. The ROI on friendship, connection, & self-worth sucks.
The real world just wins every. single. time.
Even the shitty, ordinary parts of the real world win over the glossy parts of Instagram. I’m fatigued seeing curated lives online & then talking with people in real life where what they’re saying doesn’t line up with what they’re posting. It doesn’t bother me that they post the highlight reel, I do the same. I just prefer the conversations I have with them in real-time. If the lack of time with people this year has shown me anything, it’s that the time we do have with another is the most valuable – in the most essential way, time is the only most valuable thing we have with people. And I’m tired of throwing that all away for appearance’s sake.
Maybe I won’t delete IG but I’ll have an account that has to do with something other than myself. Ha, what a concept!
2019
5.2k likes in 90 posts
55 likes/post
2018
15.5 likes in 177 posts
88 likes/post
2017
9.2k likes in 113 posts
81 likes/post
2016
3.1k likes in 95 posts
33 likes/post
Enter your Instagram handle [here] to see your Top 9. What are you most proud of this year?
Scavenger Hunt
It is hard to have hope. Then I went for a walk in the woods. There were children with their parents on the trail. They bopped along from left to right, searching for something among the trees, the fallen leaves.
On my way back to the trailhead I found what they were seeking — little painted rocks hidden in crevices along the path. A scavenger hunt put on by Mother Nature, or somebody’s mother.
Surely this game a creation from a mother — thoughtfulness with brightly painted scenes of water, land, and sky in order to stand out. Distraction from the noise of our broken world, the one we built while sleeping. Guidance to what is important to learn as a child living through a pandemic.
I’m fearful of what we’re leaving for our children. We fret over their screen time, data usage, how technology will negatively impact their malleable, growing brains. Yet we allow ourselves, their parents, a hard pass on the matter. Scrolling while they play in our peripherals, sending emails while they nourish their bellies from our milk. The answers for our children are not on the screen. The ones we as parents are addicted to, not our children.
Our children are waiting for us to wake up. To teach them, play with them, help them find the brightly-colored rocks on the wooded trail. They know what matters. It is our responsibility to show them.
thank you to the Mother who led me to this so I can remember.
Bad Mom
Chatting with a friend the other day — we felt like bad moms.
We run ourselves into the ground every day trying to do & be all of the things, while still far from physically healed ourselves. We’ve gone overboard in the new mom department. getting all the baby products we don’t need, asking all the questions to our pediatricians, & participating in all the annoying mom pyramid scheme events on Facebook “for the baby”.
Why? Both our babes are growing, breathing, & smiling.
where does this pressure come from? It’s internalized but what is the source? In the 1920s when women were fighting for their right to vote, new research emerged about child development & the need for women to stay home to be the main source for their growth. Ironic? I’m paraphrasing but the notion that women cannot have equal rights and be a good mom at the same time deserves a deeper dive. This construct continues to play out today in different forms.
It seems mom guilt is a relatively new term after talking with mothers of past generations. They didn’t incessantly question their way of mothering. They did what they thought was best within their means during their child-rearing years. Yet here we are, the following generation of mothers, juggling nursing, career, & that god-forsaken tummy time, feeling like bad moms at the end of the day.
what gives?
tee by Bee & Fox: Every mother is a working woman.
Someday
I like the angle Austin Kleon takes with his blog — it’s reference material, notebook sketches. He writes to discover what he’s thinking (many a writer claims this). Eventually, he finds a thread to unravel further, a topic resurfacing in different forms, a root with which to pull from.
I’d like to write a book someday.
No particular reason. Just enjoy writing. Always have.
I’m in no shape to write a book currently. The throes of early motherhood are nary a time to reflect deeply. Or to strategize. Survival mode, baby. Popular quotes allude to “someday” being the antithesis of following your passion.
To which I say, timing is everything.
Until then, I keep writing.
Enjoymint
“Enjoy it before it’s gone.”
It was a sign at the ice cream shop on our way to the beach. The last weekend before closing up shop for the season. It meant enjoy our product before our resources are tapped out for a while.
Or…a reminder to enjoy this moment in my family’s early season. there are days where I don’t. Enjoy it, that is. I feel shameful; how do you have a dream come true & then be “meh” about it?
because it’s hard.
because you’re learning something new.
because you’re a kind of tired you never knew before.
We had the ice cream even though it was easier to stay home in a pool of pity. Took it to the lake. Watched the waves calm her, calm us. The last of the season’s resources for a while.
Knowing it could all go away, we must enjoy it. All of it. And take care of one another.
Who can you trust?
Can you change a person’s mind? Can you make them see your point of view? Can you see theirs? How do we teach empathy? Is it possible to not agree, to feel as if you’ve been wronged by another person & love them anyway? Forgive them anyway? Against your logic, your ego, & your baggage?
we are all being asked to look within for our own truth. being influenced by another has gotten out of hand. How do you know who to trust?
Start with yourself.
Autumnal Equinox
New season. New routine.
I’ve enjoyed having the summer to be with my babe exclusively. I’m ready to integrate as a family into our outer world a bit more. The Great Creator knows what we can handle.
I’m ready to get back to work albeit with nerves & anxiety. So much has happened in these 16 weeks in our little cocoon. When I paused my career I was not a mother, & now I am. I wish companies in the United States would honor this transition from an ancestral wisdom standpoint. I wish they would give 4-6 months to both mothers & fathers to transition into parenthood first. How many citizens they would retain & how many employees would be loyal to them upon their return.
At 6 weeks postpartum I wasn’t going back. I couldn’t imagine being disconnected from my newborn (hormonally it’s meant to be this way). I would’ve been willing to make an extreme life change in order to stay with her. Another experienced, intelligent, profitable female employee bites the dust. Yet this is the timeframe for short-term disability for vaginal delivery before you’re expected back to work. Legally. It barely honors medical recovery for the mother & does nothing to acknowledge the child who is 100% dependent on their mother for nourishment.
But then, through a series of fortuitous events, I was given 16 weeks. by week 14 postpartum I am ready to go back. An experienced, intelligent, profitable female employee stays.
She prepares for the transition with her babe. Explains through actions & words that we are getting ready for an adventure. One that affects the entire family. it’s important we take good care of one another, little one.
Let us be intentional in our preparation.
Screen time
My thumb hovers over the screen.
End of the day. transition to the next season. Hard news about a friend.
I try to tap a square that will make me feel good again. Less tired, more inspired. I deleted them all. For moments like this when I am weary. When I am more than fried looking to fry some more.
Thank you past me for thinking of the future me. You’ve never needed what can only fit into a box.
A Freelance Mindset
The skills I learned to survive as a freelance designer has come in handy for navigating both parenthood & pandemic. The biggest piece: mindset.
it was important to have rituals get me from one mindset to the next when freelancing full-time. the environment wasn’t changing — I worked, lived, & played from home. rituals transitioned me away or towards work.
Mornings started with exercise & breakfast (something for me) before client emails & meetings (something for them). I was in control of my day instead of the client determining my day. We were all in it together. I could remember that was true if I gave time to myself first.
A couple of hours of focused work, then food again. it was often with a book, podcast, show, or nap. topics unrelated to work. Sometimes it was out of the house (library, coffee shop, porch, trail) to truly step away from the physical place of responsibility.
Afternoon work was often slower, more distracted with personal errands & tasks, but work nonetheless. the day would end welcoming Joel home, a walk with Tiger, a glass of wine on the porch, or a beer at the local watering hole in the winter. Dinner with friends, a show, workout, or a book. bedtime routine.
rinse & repeat until the weekend.
Not very glamorous but it took me years to discover a template. I’m proud of my findings. I enjoy the stability of a routine. then breaking it here & there.
It’s important to know triggers & red flags. Then you can combat them. “Ok that helped. that didn’t.” You troubleshoot, you’re in conversation with yourself, & you keep going.
I’m grateful for freelancing first in my career. It gave me the essentials of boundary-setting, personal reflection, a wellness-first mindset, & daydreaming.
Now I use those tools for both parenthood & pandemic. who would’ve thought?
The World
A year ago she pulled my first tarot cards.
I was in Seattle for work. Finished the trip with a visit to my cousin & his girlfriend’s place. I’d spent the week in a swanky hotel in the heart of the tech boom. My cousin lived in Capitol Hill. In a novel from another time they were beatniks. Refreshing after the breakneck speed I was coming from.
After guacamole & rum tiki drinks around town, she did my first tarot reading. There was a line of them, a reason for each. I only remember the last — The World. It represents a milestone coming full circle. A goal accomplished. An ending making room for a beginning.
That tech boom event in Seattle was my last. Flew home by the light of the Harvest moon, closer than I’ve ever been to Her. I was pregnant soon after.
Do I believe in the cards? Oh, I don’t know.
But I believe in that moment.
Sandy toes
May I always live in a home where there are sandy toes. Because that will mean I’ll be in a home near the water near the beach by some trail to catch a sunset.
Joel looks at houses the way I check out books from the library — hopeful each one has the potential for dreams to be realized. He sends listings to me throughout the day. Slips in a comment about a feature he knows I’ll love in between flipping Sunday eggs & diaper changes. I am half-listening while he is full dreaming. The season we’re in, I suppose.
But just like this little lodge by the lake, the one I skipped over at first drive by, I will know when my sandy toes step over the threshold.
Until then, these sandy toes like the way they feel when they touch the hardwood, the jute rug, on the way to the shower before bedtime on the first of the Autumn days.