I've just been listening to a radio interview with Rachel Power, author of The Divided Heart, along with two of her interviewees, and just listening to them talk inspired me to get back to writing something - even blogging.
I have written virtually nothing since I started work two months ago. A few blog posts, a few more half blog posts*, nothing else.
I blame it partly on settling into my new routine that includes three days a week in the paid workforce,** partly on a sort of post-intensive study/writing lull, and partly on the fact that I've been sick four (4!) times since I began work. That's roughly every two weeks. Currently I m just getting my voice back after two days without it, but to compensate one of my ears is completely blocked (and weeping!) and every sounds reverberates inside there, mixing in with the constant ringing. And that's not even to mention the sore throat, headache, wet cough etc. And this began two Sundays ago.
Of course another factor is Spring - I always have a hard time settling down to writing in the Spring, when what I really want to do is get out into the garden. Today it is a beautiful, sunny, 16 degree day, and what I really long to be doing is getting out into the vegie garden which has a lot of preparation needed before the Spring planting begins,*** but I know that what i should really be doing is resting, and even standing here at the bench typing on my laptop (which is the only way Kaely will let me get any writing done) is more restful than digging paths and lugging manure and mulch and sawdust. So when my brain is still available at night I've been re-reading books on permaculture and vegetables and herbs, and drawing out plans, trying to figure out how to make the best of my south-west facing block.
But back to the point of this post, which was writing and motherhood and Rachel's book. Rachel Power, I realised half way through the interview, is a very good friend of a friend of mine. A few years back when Liam was a baby, and her first child was a baby, and I was in Melbourne for a month while Chris completed his Rolfing triaining, our mutual friend was trying to get us together, and I remember she told me that Rachel was writing (or perhaps just thinking about at that stage) this book. We both had babies and lived on opposite sides of Melbourne and had transport issues, so we never did manage to connect. But it was partly talking to that same friend, a year or so later, that inspired me to start the Masters degree. I suppose I felt that studying and working part-time would simply not be possible at the same time as being the mother I wanted to be for my son.
Of course me studying did impact Liam. And (equally of course) that is one of the refrains of the book - the balancing act between doing the work you want/need to do and being the mother you want/your children need you to be. One of the women interviewed said that of course her children were impacted, but that for her it was about finding the compromise she could live with. Of course, that's something I suppose all working mothers (and to some extent fathers) live with, but there's a definitely difference between working for a certain pay check and working for a *maybe* pay check, somewhere in the future. For me, I suppose that I could make a living writing if I really really worked at it, but it would be a lot more work for a lot less money. So my writing becomes something that I fit into my 'spare' time, and hope to get bits of peices of published here and there.
Another difference between the at work mother and the artist mother is that the latter, whether she's paid or not, is very often a work-at-home mother, so her work is constantly interrupted and fit in around. Rachel Power spoke about the self-discipline required - that now she has finished The Divided Heart, it's so much easier to make the beds than to sit down and start a new project. Especially, I add, when you know that you will be interrupted over and over again. So far in the time I've been writing this post I have also
- changed a stinky nappy
- set Mikaela up with the trainset
- set Mikaela up with the barn and animals
- set Mikaela up with a pencil case and paper (and moved myself from the kitche bench to the dining room table so as to keep an eye on her and make sure she neither sucks any of Liam's textas (markers) dry, nor draws on my pile of gardening books also sitting on the dining room table)
- put on a load of washing (nappies)
- helped Mikaela with numerous pen lids, and rescued the same from her mouth.
One of the mothers on the radio mentioned the guilt over knowing that your children want to be with you, and yet you are argonising over the exactly word or phrase you need while they watch a video. Mikaela's not yet of an age or temperament where I can count on the tele to keep her occupied for more than about five minutes (although sometimes it will), but I have certainly experienced that guilt with Liam. For me though, when I was studying on a Sunday, it was more the sense that I was depriving not only the kids, but the whole family of 'family time' (since Chris was also working on Saturdays). So now that I am not studying, and Chris is not working on Saturdays for a while, I am relishing our long, two day weekends, but also half wishing I could justify shutting myself away in my study again. I said I was write in the evenings, but so far I haven't done it. Some women get up at the crack of dawn to write or paint or whatever before their kids are up, but my kids are up at about 6am lately, and I frankly am not going to get up significantly earlier than that - I don't get enough sleep as it is.
I am still planning to make the evenings thing work for me, but for the moment I really just need to try to get my health under control, and try to write a little more during the day I think, the washing be damned.
On the up side, I was interested to hear my experience reflected (and I gather this was also a common theme), in that having children actually makes the art easier, the work more efficient in some ways. There's something about knowing you only have ten minutes, or two hours or whatever that can focus the mind, reduce the procrastination, and enhance one's ability to make fast judgements. One of the women also commented that having children makes your emotional nerve endings that much more sensitive, which can actually be quite useful to an artist.
But now I have literally used up all my time for writing this morning. Kaely is moving towards melt down and needs to be fed and put to bed in time to get her up again to go pick Liam up for school. It's possible her nap will give me more time, but just as likely that she'll spend half of it in my arms and then wake up twenty minutes after I put her down. I don't mind too much - I love having her sleep in my arms, and it gives me an enforced rest too, which I could use. Then again I could also use the time to hang out those nappies before while the sun is still high in the sky, or to think about dinner, or perhaps I could plant some of those tomato seeds that arrived in the mail the other day, so they'll be ready to plant out in the garden by the beginning of November... right now though I'd better go organise lunch.
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*Because most of the time when I start writing Kaely interrupts after about two paragraphs if I'm lucky, and then again another para on, and so on until I completely lose the thread and the interest. Which is why the posts I do write are so jumpy from one thought to another - no time to stop and think or save a thought till later or re-structure afterwards, if i do that, it never gets posted at all.
**Which i am still quite enjoying by the way, and at least there I am getting to do a teeny bit of writing - currently I'm working on a story on WWII shipwrecks in Australian waters, as random as that sounds - though mostly I'm doing more mundane work of updating websites with other people's content.
***Our vegie garden has lain fallow since we moved the chooks back into their run a couple of months back, but we are about to get serious about it again - and see how that goes with Lochie and what we might have to do. In the meantime, on the weekend we finally got a couple more Silkies (another white and a blue) to be friends for Fluffy, which was very exciting and is another reason to be spending time outside.
