I have even more to say!
On prioritizing motherhood, how that's not 'cool', and Chapter 7 of Resume Gap
My mind feels bottomless these days. Here’s the pattern: I have a deep need to express something. I do all this work to express it, i.e., I write an essay. I toil over it! When I think it’s finally done, I send it off into the world. I feel so relieved. I swish swash my palms across one another. Done! But then, less than twenty-four-hours later, I’m back on my bullshit. Feeling itchy. I have more to say! I start writing an essay. Which reminds me of the Joy Williams quote: “Nothing the writer can do is ever enough.” (Which I found via Kara Norman’s excellent post about the writing process.)
Point being, I was working on this new essay, trying to understand why this current version of Miranda July / the seemingly universal appeal of All Fours (at least in the left-leaning spaces I find myself) is causing me agita, when I came across this essay by Sarah Menkedick. If you’re here on my Substack because of my housewives essay, perhaps you’ve already read it? There are definitely some parallels between what Menkedick is saying and what I’ve written.
But the more I jotted down my thoughts, the more I kept thinking of this specific poem by Brenda Shaughnessy. And the thing is I’d already written about this poem! I quote it in my illustrated-memoir project Resume Gap, the first six chapters of which I’ve already shared here.
Ironically, however, I hadn’t yet shared Chapter 7, which is the chapter where the Shaughnessy poem is referenced.
I started Resume Gap so long ago—in 2019! And so, in some ways, I feel quite distant from the version of myself in it. But in other ways, I still very much recognize her and still like spending time with her. She was so confused about the messaging she was receiving from her peers. But she was writing everything down, taking careful notes. She was on the way to discover what I know now: that motherhood all on its own is a beautiful, fascinating, potentially even radical endeavor.
Okay. Enough introduction! I give you Chapter 7:
I loved that Viking ship so much and then it was followed by the final image, which is just so great. Lolol smicky booby - please tell me this phrase still circulates at your house. Soft and see-through is so heart-breaking and apt. I really love the mystical moment in the hospital and the initiation slide 💘💘💘