Not Fat Enough

This weight loss scheme of mine has been working tremendously well—for my husband. He has lost all of the weight he gained during my pregnancy and has delighted in being able to wear all his slim fitting shirts again. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t working for me also, but I’ve become frustrated by how long it’s taking for me to lose the weight I want to lose. There are a couple of bits of denial I’d like to own here:

1. I did gain fifty-seven pounds during my pregnancy and no amount of earnest wishing is going to take them away overnight, though somehow I believed that’s how quickly it would happen.

2. I started out so diligent with counting and tracking my Weight Watchers points daily—a key element to success in the program, in my experience—but have of late allowed for some slacking in this area.

3. Walking to the park, the store, and the farmer’s market from the Bahn station probably doesn’t constitute a proper workout, something I’ve been wanting to believe since I moved to Berlin.

Probably the most shocking of all my lapses of reality lately was believing that I don’t look as large as my actual weight—which, if you’ve ever met me or any other woman, you’ll know never to ask me about the specifics of that number. I went to the theatre last week and found myself in the front row. The production included multimedia elements and during several moments, a live camera was focused on the audience. The feed was then played on several TV monitors on the stage, facing outward. When I located myself on the monitors I was horrified to discover that the actual width and roundness of my body was in great contrast to the cute, petite thing I was sure I had admired in the mirror just hours before. I realize the camera adds ten pounds or so, but this was well beyond lens fluffiness. What was particularly unnerving was that I was wearing the outfit I wore when I wanted to look trim and fit. I truly believed that in those garments, no one could tell that I was thirty pounds overweight. What I saw on that monitor, however, told such a dramatically different story that I went into a bit of a sweaty, panic. The camera was still on me (so clever of me to sit in the front row, eh?) and of course I had to continue to smile—my full, ballooning cheeks turning bright red. Thankfully and surprisingly, my stopgap here was to remind myself that I’d given birth a mere six months ago. Yes, some women lose all of their baby weight within the first couple months of breastfeeding, but I’d heard that there was this other lot who only ever lost weight after breastfeeding ceased. I suppose I am in that contingency, and seeing as I’m still breastfeeding, it’s no wonder the weight is still on! For all my kindness, though, I left the theatre feeling small—in self-esteem only.

But as I mentioned above, my weight loss scheme is working, even with breastfeeding. I have lost weight and continue to lose or maintain what I’ve lost each week. As of last Friday, I’ve lost nearly twelve pounds since early January. That’s not such a grand number for going on three months of dieting, but for nursing mothers (and casual walkers,) Weight Watchers will have you lose it slowly. So what’s my damage, you may ask? Here it is:

I really miss my pre-pregnancy body.

I’d worked really hard in the past few years, pre-pregnancy, to concoct a healthy eating plan that allowed me to maintain my weight. I’d also started running and had gotten into the best shape of my life—something that I really let slide during my pregnancy. In my pre-pregnancy body, I’d always claimed that I was ten pounds away from my ‘ideal’ weight, but truly, I was happy with myself. I miss the clothes that were worn on that body, now tucked away in suitcases under my bed and sullenly hanging in my closet next to dreary maternity-wear. I’m ready to put my ‘full-panel’ stretch jeans away and am saddened by the prospect that I’m not even close to doing so. It all makes me want to eat some chocolate. But of course, I cannot. Well, I can, actually, just not the self-medicating portion I would prefer.

Where to go from here: Let me assure you that I’ve been here before—on a diet, trying to lose weight—many a time. Perseverance is the only solution. This week, I’m attempting count and record every point of food I eat. As far as exercise is concerned, I’m using the start of spring to begin running again (by the way—it’s not spring yet, no matter what the temperatures say—spring starts when we get back from vacation mid-April, thank you very much!) Tonight I had just two pieces of dark chocolate instead of four, the self-medication equivalent of a Flintstone vitamin.

My husband is the biggest supporter of my efforts in every single way imaginable. He often makes dinner and weighs all of our food on the kitchen scale so I can calculate the points. Without even asking him, he portions out things like butter and oil in his cooking so it’s easier for me to keep track of what we’re eating. Probably the most valuable thing he does is let me know that there is someone that thinks I’m beautiful even if I have my serious doubts. He’s militant, in fact, about not letting me bemoan my proportions.

When I came home from the theatre last week with concerned questions about the figure flattering capabilities of my alleged ‘skinny’ outfit, I asked Nicholas a question most men would shudder to answer:

“Does this top make me look fat?”

With a loving smile and without hesitation, he turned to me and said,

“Not fat enough”








Photo: Me, River City Half Marathon, Sacramento, California, 2010, Pre-pregnancy.

Tantrum

When I come against an obstacle I find that there’s a pattern of steps I follow to find resolution. Shamefully, the most important of these seems to be one where I behave badly. I throw a fit. Once that phase is over, however, I accept my fate with aplomb and move forward. It’s necessary, however, for me to resist, like antibodies fighting a virus, in order to emerge stronger and healthier on the other side.

I performed an embarrassing, new mom tantrum a few weeks after Lennon was born. We were struggling with breastfeeding and he wasn’t gaining the recommended amount of weight. I was nursing for what seemed like every second of the day and yet it had little affect. The diagnosis was that my milk supply was low and I would need to start using a breast milk pump if breastfeeding was to continue. To increase my supply, I was meant to pump milk from my breasts several times a day for about ten minutes a session. This would provide extra milk for Lennon and fool my body into producing more milk to meet the increased, albeit manufactured, demand. I was already thoroughly exhausted and the idea of nursing this other, mechanical baby in addition to my newborn brought me to tears. This exhaustion was compounded by the new, overwhelming responsibility of trying to provide my baby with the healthiest and highest quality of everything. I was beholden to go forward with whatever it would take to make breastfeeding work even though every molecule of my sleep deprived self wanted to scream, “This is not what I signed up for! I want a refund!” I nearly said those exact words to my very patient midwife, asking her,

“Do nursing mothers just never leave the house? Do they never leave the couch? Do they live their lives as nursing machines? How in the hell do they do this?”

What I wanted and naively expected to hear from her were cushioned words allowing me to give up, saying that it wasn’t all that important to breast feed, and that no one would ever expect anyone to go through anything approaching such burdensome nonsense. Instead, she calmly answered, “We just do it.”

Right.

The next day, I rented a breast milk pump and began the process of increasing my supply and feeding my baby so he would gain the weight he needed. I really fought against the difficulty of it all, though. I fought until I didn’t recognize what I was fighting against. I fought until I looked foolish—until there was nothing left to do but the hard thing itself and be happy about it.

Last week I wrote about how I had buoyed myself up from having suffered the rejection of not being awarded the DAAD scholarship. Tragically, I failed to take my own advice. The next day I discovered that the wound was deeper than three days time and a pep talk could heal. I sat in the kitchen and explained to Nicholas all the reasons why not getting the DAAD scholarship meant that I should not pursue a PhD:

Firstly, I’m not a real academic. I attended a conference last May with other Performance Studies PhDs and discovered that I was way out of my league. They all seemed so well read in Performance theory where I’m primarily a practitioner, still learning how to slog through academic language. What business have I writing a dissertation? Twice now my project has not been awarded funding. Maybe this is a sign. Also, wouldn’t it just be so much easier, nice-n-tidy, and generally more leisurely to go back to the familiar ground of teaching theatre in a K-8th grade environment? I could leave behind the uncomfortable, knee-deep discussions of Performance theory and elevator-pitch explanations of my dissertation. Teaching grade school would also be a more Lennon-gentle route, being able to maintain clear, daytime hours with a family friendly vacation schedule. But the most penultimate reason to throw in the towel, I explained, was that I had tried to call my advisor that day and her secretary said she was very busy and would not be able to meet with me for a while. She’d be happy to send me some other funding opportunities via email, but a one-on-one would not be possible right now. I knew I was on my own with my research, that’s how PhDs are done in Germany, but at this moment I really needed my advisor—a woman of great importance in the Performance Studies world—to bolster my confidence. She hadn’t the time. Bad timing, woman of great importance. Having presented my case, I asked my husband how I could ever overcome such incredible odds? How could I continue with this PhD scheme and its difficult trajectory? The path of least resistance was surely a more sensible route. Certainly there are many who would agree with me that I just don’t have what it takes to be an academic. Nicholas listened and then said, “You can do it, Schatz.”

Fine.

I opened a book of performance theory, grabbed my highlighter, and began reading. I bought a ticket for a play by a company I’d wanted to investigate. I started to do it. Later that day, I visited the little bowl on my desk filled with fifty curled strips of paper. On each strip is one of Nancy Sathre-Vogel’s ‘50 Lessons I Wish I had Learned Earlier.’ If you’ve read more than one of my posts, you may have noted my passion for lists. About a month ago, I had printed out Ms. Sathre-Vogel’s list, cut each item from the page, and placed them in a bowl on my desk to pull from if I needed guidance. The Tao of My Desk, if you will. I glanced at the snow-white curls on top and decided to sink my hand deep to collect my fortune. The lesson I fished that day said:

47. If it were easy everyone would do it.

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

There are two things that always bring the sad: Rejection and The Oscars. Rejection comes knocking any old time and often. Oscar night is mercifully only once a year. Imagine my dismay when they both came the same week.

Working in the theater over the years, I’ve made the disappointing discovery that I’m not a star. I’m not the most gifted person in the talent pool, but that’s not the reason I’m not a star. I could work harder at honing my chops. What makes me not a star is that I care more about the artistic vision than the artist. When you are a star, other people worry about the big picture so you can concentrate your efforts on character, a practice that left me wanting more as a performer. It was a troubling transition to make at first, having spent the first half of my life only being concerned with me on the stage. I had to quiet my ego a bit in order to make the work that was really important to me. Since then, the ‘why’ of what I do is so much clearer and the process more fulfilling.

However:

The Oscars always awakens that childhood voice that whispers with glitter and sparkle, “Be a star!” Nothing makes stardom look so good as award ceremonies, partly because you don’t have to see the behind the scenes work that got them to the Hollywood and Highland Center in the first place. When the awardees talk about how much they’ve sacrificed for their craft, the sentiment is a little dulled by the luster of their Lanvin. All I can see on Oscar night is the glory. No matter how I remind myself that such ends wouldn’t justify the means it’d take for me to get there, I’m still starry eyed—then flooded with ‘what-ifs’ and ‘if-onlys.’ Living in a different time zone, I read about the results after the fact. I watched Meryl’s and Octavia’s acceptance speeches online. I spent the whole day in a dull, aching funk: a precursory taste of what I had coming.

That Friday, I received an email stating that I was not awarded the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) Scholarship to pursue my PhD research. My PhD program in Germany is cost-free so the scholarship would only be used toward living expenses. I’m in the fortunate position of not needing to quit a job in order to pursue a PhD and the funds would instead be used for enhancing my academic pursuits in the way of books and travel and theatre tickets. Hence, I wasn’t so attached to receiving this money. The PhD can still happen elegantly without it. Also, my research topic has been rejected before and by the much more prestigious Fulbright Grant. Folks are just not terribly anxious to fund a project about German Expressionism and avant-garde theatre, opting instead to give their money to more obviously life altering research. I was prepared to not get this one.

However:

What I could only realize after I’d been rejected was that I’d silently viewed being awarded this scholarship as bonafide validation of my work. The DAAD scholarship is not quite the Performance Studies equivalent of an Oscar, but it would’ve made me feel like a star. My husband tried fruitlessly to cheer me by saying that I’d won the LACF Scholarship (Lennon August Cole Farrell,) making me yearn for a stiff drink. But each day is new and as ill timed as my husband’s attempt, thinking of it now warms me. As far as the Oscars are concerned, listening to Woody Guthrie over a deep pot of coffee reminded me that there is nobility in being scrappy. How full of grace to be a working class hero—a righteous and worthy path.

I don’t want to give the impression that these conundrums have been resolved here, but when I came across the list below, my wounds received some salve. It’s a list of guidelines for how to create appealing stories from Pixar story artist, Emma Coats and it did, in fact, show me how to make my own story appealing—to myself. If I can gaze upon my journey as one extended piece of poetry, disappointments begin to look more like catapults than walls. Of course life is messier than a manicured Pixar storyline and doesn’t always provide a sensible ending, but I never enjoyed spoon-fed, tidy drama anyway.

"Pixar Story Rules (one version)

Pixar story artist Emma Coats has tweeted a series of “story basics” over the past month and a half — guidelines that she learned from her more senior colleagues on how to create appealing stories:

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about till you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.

#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on - it’ll come back around to be useful later.

#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?

#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?

#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there."

Photo credit found here.
Emma Coats's list source found here.

Bad Mom

Everyday there are a dozen or so things that make me feel like I’m a bad mom. At the pediatrician last week, after Lennon’s exam, he lay there on the rather large examining table shaped like a fire truck as I discussed next steps with the doctor. The bed was deep and wide and pushed against the wall. Lennon was in the middle of it and I stood about two feet away trying to understand what the doctor was telling me. Our pediatrician has only slightly more English than I have German so these appointments are always a full immersion language lesson for mommy and more than a little stressful. As we chatted, a nurse practitioner entered the room and went straight to Lennon. She began by playing with his toes and then tried bringing him to sitting. I knew what she was doing because, while I was speaking with the doctor, I had one eye on my child, as all Good Moms would. As the nurse attempted to pick Lennon up, he began to cry.

“Sehr müde,” I said to her referring to Lennon, which I understand to mean “very tired” from my developing German vocabulary.

As I went in for the rescue, she handed him to me with a look of concern and said something to me that I didn’t understand. The doctor then gave us the signal that all was well and we could go on about our day. Out in the waiting room gathering all of our things, I replayed the session in my mind, as I often do in foreign language situations, correcting my German post mortem. When I came to the bit about the nurse practitioner, it occurred to me that maybe what she was saying as Lennon was being handed over was that I was negligent: My son was on the big red table unattended. Perhaps that’s why she went to him in the first place. I was so preoccupied with understanding the German doctor that I neglected to monitor the goings on of my near six month old who could easily surprise us all and roll of the table. I consoled myself with the reminder that I have keen mommy instinct and at two feet away I can tell the next move my child will make. I’m also tuneful of his temperament and rolling is not customarily an option when a nap is in order, as it was this midmorning. But I suppose a good mom would never take chances such as these and would instead remain directly by the big red table, arms splayed, ready for the next milestone of danger. I felt a little sick as we left and I began cycling through all the other ways I was coming up short. I thought I’d been Good but maybe today I’d been a Bad Mom. Then I wondered: Did that really happen? Maybe the look the nurse gave me was apologetic for having made my baby cry. Maybe she said something like “I tried playing with him but he wasn’t into it. So sorry!” Maybe I am so hyper sensitive about my inadequacies at this job that I assume I’m always a step away from catastrophe and the judgment of far more experienced professionals.

It’s a bit of a transition time in Lennon and my relationship. When he was first born, he needed me twenty-four hours a day between feeding, sleeping, and changing. Even though we still sleep with him in our bed, he’s much more independent during the day. I take advantage of that independence. Several times a day I get out of his hair, let him play, and do housework, sew, or write this blog. Later that time will be spent working on my PhD. I wonder if a Good Mom plays with their baby full-time, save the occasional break to eat or go to the bathroom? I don’t live in Downtown Abbey so I have to tend to the cleaning and cooking myself, at least until my husband comes home. As I said, though, I do more than just the maintenance of life: I also enjoy activities that enhance it, frivolous stuff for fun. I know I feel recharged after I complete something solely for me, like a blog post or a braided rug. It’s important that Lennon has an enthusiastic and energetic mom. This has been fortified by new studies on the dangers of over-parenting and the importance of independent playtime. Still, I find it impossible on a day-to-day basis to determine if I’m doing it all correctly, if I’m a Good Mom. I usually let instinct be my guide, but as I found out in the doctor’s office, insecurity and the German language sometimes swoop in to mess up my game. When I relayed the nurse practitioner incident to Nicholas, he assured me that I’d committed no foul play. Looking back with time to reflect, regardless of what her German words translated to, I knew that my child was safe on that big red table. Good Mom.

Nonetheless, Mom Confidence for me is a struggle. I’m new here. As a new mom, I found the post following by Josette Crosby Plank comforting. You may be able to relate to this particularly if you’ve read anything about Pamela Druckerman’s new book, Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting. It’s funny because it’s true:

French Parents are Superior—Just Like All Other Parents

A Psalm

I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The astonishing light of your own being.
-Hafiz

One morning last week, I looked at my baby boy and silently declared that were I to have only one year to live, there is no where I would rather be than here with my family, doing just this, being my husband’s wife and raising my son, savoring every single second, not missing one drop of love and magnificence. My bucket list is very short. Talk can be cheap, but on that morning, I more than just said this, I really felt it deep in my heart, how truly and miraculously beautiful my family is. I bathed in happy and lucky and blessed.

I mostly spend too much time in longing. I think I abuse longing. I long away for ‘more’ or ‘other’ instead of enjoying ‘have’ and ‘mine.’ That morning, though, my longings had nothing on me and all that was left was a ridiculous amount of love. It was holy. I did in fact ‘seize’ that moment, if not the whole day. Not to boast of my wealth, but I know that I am living amongst intense gorgeousness and I am beholden to recognize it, whether I die in a year or in fifty. Incidentally, I later told Nicholas about this and he asked that I not mention anything of it further as I was strictly forbidden to partake in such activities as ‘having only one year to live’ or ‘dying.’

Maybe it’s Lennon having been sick last week, a never-ending lack of sleep, or general Mama hormones that have made me so maudlin lately, but I’m still gushing. My little family is so wonderful that I’m nearly jealous of myself. All I want to do is to stay as healthy as I can so I can be with them for as many years as nature will allow. Sometimes when I’m in bed and I’m watching Nicholas and Lennon sleep, I try to imprint them into my hands, onto my eyes, and commit their scent to memory so when I’m too old to remember anything else, these will remain.

Before Lennon was born, I had a dream about him as a young man in his twenties. He sat next to me and put his arm around my shoulder. He was much taller than I and I leaned into him and rested my head on his chest. Lovely, sweet, magical. God, please let that dream come true.







Information on quote found here.
Photo Credit: Humboldthain Park, Berlin, Amy Cole Farrell, 2011

Looks Like We Made It: A Braided Rug Pictorial

Nearly everyone I know in Berlin furnishes their home with fixins’ from Ikea. We do the same but we work really hard at making it look like it’s all been pieced together from more interesting places. One of the ways I contribute to this is by making stuff to accent our Ikea swag. An area of our home that’s been bothering me recently is under foot. We’ve purchased more than several rectangular cotton area rugs from Ikea because A) you can machine wash them, and B) they were inexpensive, the smallest of them costing just €1.99. As other areas of our home have a more ‘cottage’ than an ‘inner city apartment’ vibe, those rugs stand out looking strictly utilitarian and decidedly Ikea.



Remedy: Last week, I decided to try my hand at making a braided rug. These rugs remind me of ones my parents had in the 1970s when my mother was going for an “Early Americana” decorating scheme. I enjoy more than my share of Early Americana and thought this look would be fab in our inner city cottage. Finding some tutorials online and in books, I discovered the best rugs can be made from scraps of fabric and old linens, giving them their common name, ‘rag rugs.’ This speaks to my inner recycler and budget minded crafter. There are few things more satisfying than making super cool things out of forgotten or discarded materials, no? To top it off, I was able to use one of those €1.99 Ikea rugs as a backing for my braided rug. Waste not want not, I always say.

The following is not intended to be a complete tutorial. The tutorial I took the most advantage of can be found here. While its narrative is a little confused, the pictures are clear and directive. I plan on making a larger braided rug for my living room at some point and will use Amanda Soule’s lovely tutorial from her book Handmade Home. Soule’s tutorial is more earnest and involves ironing the strips of fabric and hand sewing the braids with a carpet needle—things I didn’t want to mess with my first time out.

Note: My finished product has more of a ‘rag’ profile than the tidy, glamorous rug in the 'Beeline Fashions' photo above. I’ll take the extra time when making the larger one in my living room per Mrs. Soule’s instructions.

The tutorial I followed had used old sheets. I found these three cotton duvet covers at a second hand shop for €1.50 each! Using pinking shears, I cut the fabric into strips about two inches in width, eyeballing the measurement. The length of each strip was inconsequential.



I wrapped all the strips around one another to form these awesome spheres, really end products in and of themselves.



I took a strip or strand from each of the three spheres and stitched one of their ends together. Safety pinning the stitched end to my ottoman (or any soft furniture) so I would have something to pull against, I began a basic three strand braid, like one does with hair. When I came to the end of a strand, I cut a small slit into each adjoining strand and threaded them together—this step is explained in more detail in the online tutorial I reference above. Cautionary Tale: As much as I wanted to join several strips together at once to make them longer so I wouldn’t need to continually stop braiding, I found it more annoying and time consuming to manage the longer strips while weaving.



I spiraled my braid atop my Ikea rug and sewed the edges together with a zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine.



Next step was to cut off the excess Ikea rug and sew the end strands beneath.



Voila! This little oval rug (or slightly bean shaped rug?) will live in front of my son’s changing table, which happens to be in our hallway. My fabric strip spheres are still plentifully round and I plan on making a circular version for his play area.






Beeline Fashion photo source can be found here.

Motherhood Matters

Throughout my pregnancy, I imagined having time on my hands while raising my baby. I’d get stuff done while he napped. “What was the big deal about breastfeeding?” I thought, “Surely I could work on other things while he nurses. I could do sit-down things like reading, or computer stuff, or sewing.” I saw how busy my sister was with her newborn but I was sure that wouldn’t be me. I had spent years multi-tasking, running a theatre company, working a day job. The only thing on my plate now was being a full-time mother. The hardest part would be figuring out how to spend all the extra time I’d have—“but, wait,” I thought, “I’ll have my PhD work, that’ll make it so I’m not so bored during the down times.”

Oh, Hubris, why you gotta play me like that?

The other day as I went through the daily emotional roller coaster of ‘tearfully joyful’ to ‘dream-crushingly overwhelmed,’ struggling to get things done around the house while trying to be singularly present for this incredible new person, I had a horrific self-realization:

I’ve spent most of my life under-estimating and under-valuing the work of child rearing—It’s no wonder I have a less than enthusiastic attitude toward it.

I have an incredible friend with a large brood of wonderful children. She has been raising them as a stay-at-home Mother for the past thirteen years. For her, I’ve only ever had words of admiration and awe for the countless hours of self-sacrifice, love, and energy she’s given to her work. I’ve agreed with her that she is doing the most Important job on earth. But looking back, I didn’t really believe that. I used to believe the Important work was that of Art and Commerce and Medicine and World Peace. Humbled by the firsthand experience of being a Mother, I’ve finally caught on that good Mothering is the foundation upon which Art and Commerce and Medicine and World Peace stand. I reckon that anyone who’s ever had a spouse, a boss, a partner, a co-worker, a friend, or an appointment at the DMV will testify to the unparalleled Importance of a Mother’s work.

Acknowledging that I’d spent so much of my life believing anything otherwise was a first step in adjusting my perspective. I’m working on letting go now of the subtle resistance I’ve had toward this matter-ful work. I relish the beauty, the play, and the blessedness of mommy-hood, but I’ve been shamefully guilty of sighing through the burdensome bits, wishing I could be doing something more Important (as if that existed.) I’m now interested in approaching parenthood as a holistic, dynamic thing and managing the burdensome moments as I would those in any Important project that I love and want to see flourish:

By cherishing the Process.

Just today, I looked down at my five-month-old son, naked on the changing table, and wondered how soon I could start potty training him. He looked back at me with the most beautifully open smile I have ever seen and a magical voice from the purest place in my heart asked, “What’s your hurry?”