Ah this endless battle–to create, to accomplish, to achieve, to write, dance, sing…and the impossibility of doing any of this when all your energy goes into being a mom, a wife, keeper of home and hearth. I make Motherhood my art, but I feel so much pressure to actually do something more tangibly valuable. Mothers are so undervalued, underappreciated and underpaid in our culture. It takes an iron will and a strong sense of self to stay the course and not get depressed.
I read something today that inspired me: how does the individualist find dignity and purity in a plastic culture and a polluted world?
I think about this and I think; I find dignity and purity in simplicity, nature, the smell of the earth after it rains, watching my three-year-old run through the sprinklers in his pajamas after bedtime as the fog rolls in, joining Annabelle and Henry’s Pots-and-Pans Marching Band (no clothes allowed, only diapers and rainboots–according to Henry), in the beauty of feeling George quietly take my hand as I sit on the porch surrounded by trees, hearing only the occasional bird as they bed down for the night, in a good bottle of wine, rosy cheeks and lively conversation, in the feel of tiny soft pudgy hands grabbing my cheeks every night and saying “you’re the best mommy in the whole world,” in a trip to the library on a rainy day and the distinct satisfaction of a kind librarian stamping the back of each book, in running my hands along the rough edges of my lavendar granite sink, in feeling the power and stability of walking on the rocks in Menemsha and wishing they could talk and tell me their stories, we do love a good story around here, in the sound of the sea bell clanging its mournful song…
One Response
Love this! I think you are worth all the glitter in the pixie world!