#68: may writer's note
tiny little patterns in time, a few dispatches from post-birth life
Good morning,
I’ve been mother to baby T for about ten weeks now and today felt like the right day to send off some notes from the journey so far, which I can only describe as the most poetic 10 weeks of my life. I am in a constant state of writing, learning and deeply breathing. What more could you want from life?
Here are some clippings from my notebook, particularly about the experience of new motherhood as a writer and how time moves these days. (At this stage, anything else, like how much I adore the tiny human we are getting to know, would be impossible to put into words.)
dispatch: 5 weeks post birth
My breastfeeding pillow has just enough space on it
for a small notebook.
When I feed T, I rest his head on the corner
of a muslin blanket covering the pillow.
Placing my notebook on muslin feels kind and gentle,
something I've never been toward my own work.
Baby is a remarkable officemate.
He is practicing everything repetitively:
swallowing, digesting, growing, excreting,
obtaining and abandoning reflexes,
increasing capacity for sight, sound and connection.
This is labor.
Alongside his, I do mine,
in our shared room.
Babies drink milk every 2 to 3 hours and so:
I'm at work, every 2 to 3 hours.
With focused posture on opposite planes
He drinks, I think.
It's meditative.
I have less to say about parenthood at this stage
than I do about time.
In our new relationship,
There are no ifs, ands, buts:
Night is for precious little sleep.
Alarms cannot be ignored.
I am living with precision for the first time.
I have only experienced this precision in production,
being on set, on a shoot, on deadline,
I love it: feeling exhausted and precise.
dispatch: 7 weeks post birth
I’m taking you through an evening with me, which began with a virtual writing group I’m part of. It felt so good to read someone’s work, to be reminded that writing matters, to see people who are committed to it, to have human contact that is unrelated to the sweet, tiny baby who emerged from my body and I’ve been holding close for 7 weeks now, though really, it’s been 9 months and 7 weeks and perhaps even longer if we think about how long we’ve wanted him.
Baby and I are standing (swaying, rather) at my desk in the room that is our workspace. I could call it a nursery and an office, but it’s much more than that.
It’s where we see the sun come up, where we change clothes and change perspectives over and over. It’s where we both have our most precious belongings. His: gifts from friends and family all around the country who have been helping us celebrate his arrival. Mine: my notes, my books, my favorite curtains, my reading chair, which is also our nursing chair.
In the writing group, someone mentioned that I look so put together, that I seem to be doing well. I agree, but I also don’t know that “negative or positive well-being” is the right spectrum on which to place new mothers. I’ve been screened for postpartum depression at every doctor’s visit I’ve been to so far. This is a good thing, but also a constant reminder to evaluate yourself. It feels too early.
What has allowed me to be “doing well” is a peculiar habit I lean on in periods that ask a lot out of me. I prepare well, then iterate on a checklist I keep on my phone of the things I need to keep me well. The last time I did this was when I hit a low with burnout some years ago. I was told to prioritize self-care and the only way I could make it a habit was by putting it on a list. Ever since then, I approach self-care as a complex profession, as in the Checklist Manifesto. I make a list, and I regularly review and iterate on it. Outsourcing the need to remember what works frees up so much space to think about new things, to be present.
I took time to learn what I need to do to feel well in the years leading up to now. I tried different things. I ultimately learned that I need my environment to feel cozy, cheerful, relatively organized and calm. I need to eat well in the morning. I need to maintain my Buddhist practice of chanting, even for a few minutes. But I also need to practice new things. Domestic work has never been my strong suit—I’ve always been a pile in the sink, pile on the bedroom floor kind of girl. But the stability I crave, the stability I want my children to experience, very much comes from a home in which there is a rhythm to the day and a rhyme to the clutter of the modern world. So, on my list, are small, manageable habits I learned to practice, ones that I continue to maintain now, in the haze of newborn parenting.
Truthfully, I don’t feel very hazy. I feel clearer than I have in a very long time. I don’t sleep long nights the way I used to, but I try to get all the sleep I need in short bursts alongside baby. The best advice I received was: don’t start your day until your cumulative sleep totals what you need, even if the day starts terribly late. It took getting used to, and it takes help, which I am privileged to have.
Since I don’t have long days to work anymore, an urgency has erupted within me to capture thoughts, read quickly, and write however possible, without the existential resistance that has plagued my creative life forever.
(Example: I’m writing this dispatch in quick, interrupted spurts, like right now. A squirming 9-pound baby is attached to the front of my body and I’m typing and wiggling at the same time to match his desire for movement.)
My list also includes “take notes everyday” and my desire to check it off has resulted in a new habit of capturing short notes on my phone almost religiously, often by audio and sometimes at my computer.
It’s a strange, effective, unexpected solution to a lifelong issue of having a very low idea-to-execution ratio. Who knew that removing time would be the fastest path to execution? Who knew that a checklist would generate so much momentum?
(We’ve paused for some tears. Off came the carrier and baby is now lying on my chest as I sit in an unergonomic position at my desk. I’ll have to abandon this note for the dinner demand soon. Homemade soup needs to come out of the freezer for us, milk is going to letdown for baby in a moment, and our puppy, who is hiding from the baby at my feet, still hasn’t eaten breakfast due to a hunger strike she’s on for the attention she is missing.)
I work in these spurts because I’m not on leave. There is no three month clock ticking till I return to a role in which I’m paid well and until then, expected to rest and bond with my baby. I dove headfirst from freelancer to primary caregiver. A deep desire to continue my non-care work is enabling me to fit it into the crevices of my day. This week, I managed 4 hours.
I want to learn how to work patiently and consistently instead of in big swings that require big breaks. These are the examples I want to see from parents. How did you do small, important things along your way, without “leave,” especially as a freelancer or independent creator? I couldn’t find examples anywhere, not because they weren’t there, but because they are so difficult to put into words.
(We’re now 11 minutes from what *should* be time for baby to wake up from his last nap if I have any hope of him sleeping tonight. I don’t like to wake him, he’s too small, but his rhythms have begun to present themselves and we now know that if he wakes up at 7pm for a good long bit of smiles, tears, and stretchy wiggles, he has expended enough energy to want to sleep at night like the rest of us, which he often does. What that means for me is a complete interruption to my thinking, doing and freedom for the post-sunset hours till he is out (if he’s out). I love sitting on the floor with him as the sun sets, dinner in one hand, all other body parts working to engage him however he’d like to play.)
Motherhood, so far, is the keen observation of tiny little patterns in time. Lucky me, this was already one of my favorite hobbies.
In his first weeks and even months, baby is too immature to do much more than drink milk, become efficient at drinking milk, exercise his digestive system and allow each and every bodily system to come online through tiny actions, like moving his eyes around the room, learning to grab things with his hands. His revelations are understanding night and day and cause and effect.
Alongside him, I am learning again what cause and effect is. I’m learning to do my nights with intention. I’m relearning the arc of the day. I am living in rhythm with the sun for the first time in many years—always awake for sunrise, which happens just after his early morning feeding, and always slowing down for sunset, which happens just before we move into darkness for bedtime.
dispatch: 10 weeks post birth
Never have I moved so slowly, been so attentive, felt so grounded, been so sure.
Never have I experienced so much science and magic at the same time.
Never have I felt like such a witness and protagonist at the same time.
Never have I felt so much ownership and curiosity at the same time.
My favorite book on the care journey so far is the RIE Manual for Parents and Professionals, a collection of papers that describes a way of seeing and caring for infants based on respect. I love that it’s directed at both infant care professionals and parents. (It has never made sense to me that we expect education of the professionals we hire to care for our children, but we don’t expect the same of ourselves.)
This was one of the first books that has felt both educational and resonated deeply with my intuition. There is so much literature on what to do with a baby. But few resources on how to be. I keep going back to these words on Magda Gerber’s philosophy:
Respect for the child is the key to understanding Magda’s philosophy. What happens when you respect someone is that you put a little distance between yourselves. That distance sets the two of you apart from each other, so that you can see each other more clearly.
I find that baby T is most relaxed when we are coexisting peacefully. I am not doing anything special to help him move from one experience to the next. He is just growing and I am writing nearby and every so often, we exchange a tearful hug, a curious glance or a big smile.
I’m still feeling my way back to a publishing rhythm, but I’ll be in your inbox at least monthly from here. To all those who have nurtured infants in the past or present, I am in awe of you and in awe with you.
Happy Sunday,
Jihii