Giving up my Work.

It’s December 4^th and I just decided to not prioritize my novel, my work, for the entire month of December, as there is always so much tension and never enough time this time of year. The decision was troubling to me…especially since I also recently decided play hooky from my writing group in December. If I am working so hard on self-care and love then why was I so willing to sacrifice my work? Why are Ramona’s performances, her birthday party, holiday festivities more important? Isn’t this self depreciation?

No.

December is a time for me to withdraw into care for home, family, friends, but also for self. The hearth. It is the time to get the house together, to renew, to re coup. To pack up the old useless stuff and send it off.

Our work – who we are in the world and the mark we leave-, if we tap into our innermost selves, is our true voice. But nothing can always be on; eternal growth is capitalist myth. The voice needs rest. Minds need to digest. Ideas need to percolate. Our private lives need to be honored. Even machines wear out if you leave them on all the time.

In December I get my house in order. I honor home and care. I read the books that have being piling up in my “to read” stack. I purge and clean my house to ready it for our guests/friends and to make space for the new year. I focus my attention on giving and decorating for friends and holidays. I hold no expectations nor cling to outcomes. I make sure my daughter knows how important she is and I prioritize her winter performances; the costumes, rehearsals, the tickets, transportation; you know, things that the world doesn’t really think matters. Withdrawing is part of the cycles life. It moves us into the future. It is ending a cycle and preparing for the next. Its looking in and taking care. 

I used to complain about Ramona’s birthday being in December, but now I see the blessing. It has changed me. It has shown me how to submit to the cycles, and a whole, rich life. A plant can not always be in bloom, lest it wither and die.

In January it will be 2017. A new year.

The mother alone

The world has a lot of ideas about what a single mother should and should not do. She shouldn’t give birth, for one, if she is single, unless she is rich, of course, but even then...

A single mother should not homeschool her child, especially if she receives any sort of benefits. As a culture we do not support mother's spending time day with their children! Poor children belong in institutions, the public school system, so that they can be taught how to not be like you. You send your kids to school so you can work. Take some night classes while you are at it. The only thing a single mother should do is mother her child, but only when she is not working or attending an official higher learning institution. You need discipline. It is important that we keep the gears of our economy chugging along. Maybe it will grow so big it will become bigger than the earth itself, and then devour it.

But I am a writer, I say, I am writing a novel. That doesn’t count!, they say back.  Writing a novel isn’t real work until you make money, and even after you make money, we will all know you cheated in the first place. Like JK Rowling. We paid her rent while she sat and wrote silly stories when she could have been working at a real job.

You may only write a novel if you get up at 4am, even though you went to sleep at 11.  You can follow your true dreams, your inappropriate dreams, on your own time, when you aren’t working and when your child is asleep. I do, I say. But I sneak it in at other times too, I whisper, when I am supposed to be doing something else; when I am supposed to be being a productive member of society.

The Exhausted Mother, August Heyn (1837-1920)

This morning, I hope I can pull together the fragments of my mind just enough to focus, to unify, to connect, so the creativity can radiate through my body, through my heart and my head, through my arms, my fingertips.  Then slip out of me, hot and thick like molten lava, slowly slipping and sliding and hardening into form. But the child is sleeping. I am afraid she will wake up. Mommy!  I can’t focus, I know its coming. I feel guilty for wanting her to stay unconscious for much much longer so that I don't have to mother. I need to forget so I can calm the worried fragments. How will I forget today?

I want to get away. Take a weekend retreat like I know other mothers do. No. You must labor. You must labor until you have saved yourself.  

Being and Doing

Our culture is all about doing, accomplishing. Not so much about just being. People who are happy being, are often viewed less intelligent, lazy, lacking initiative, or...spiritual. I've been a little bit obsessed with doing and accomplishing. I never seem to be content unless I am clear about what I am DOING. And what I DO generally needs to be somehow making the world a better place or making art (which is also making the world a better place at the heart of it). But lately I haven't been able to do anything really. Or wanted to. Not doing a lot of parenting or homechooling, or practicing the bass like I am supposed to be, or painting that picture I want to paint, or writing that historical piece I have been thinking about for a year or so. I have 10 unfinished drafts to this blog (I think I will erase them).

I have no drive to do much of anything. Barely keeping the house together. Going to the gym (okay that is something). Thinking about my far-away love and how I will get him here (I guess that is something, too). Learning how real a long distance relationship can be (I am repenting at the moment).  Getting in a little gardening...Seeing my therapist. Looking for work. Oh. Maybe I do do stuff. And all this inner work. Now that is exhausting. And that is where the line between doing and being is washed away. And examined life is a lot of work.

Sheesh, this writing is reminding me of all the stuff I got to do!

Trust

I was talking to my sis last night, and our conversation turned to be about being young and "how does society support and value adolescent people." (My hypothesis being that society didn't really do a very good job at honoring young people, especially adolescents.) In conversation, we came to realize that we are both have been going through a sort of remembering.  After all this searching for who we are and what we want in life, we came to realize that when we were 11, 13, 15, we knew more about who we were and what we wanted than we did for the following 20 years.  We are both experiencing a sort of returning to our selves, our loves and preferences. Our young selves knew...before societal and cultural pressures pushed us around and made us doubt that we knew who we were or made us believe that we needed to be more or different or like someone else.  The message that we were "too young to know what we wanted in life" was played over and over and how were we to know any better?

 So here I am with the same dream I had as a child.  Now, my job is to trust myself.  Because that person is the person who wants to trust my daughter.