To my love,
I had your children. Both of them. Through my body.
Don’t doubt that I love them. And, even, don’t doubt that I
love you. But this must be said.
I can’t be all things at once.
Hell, I can’t be all things ever.
I was thirty-one when I had our first. It was a difficult
pregnancy, a traumatic birth, a difficult adjustment, a hard life for me. Being
home, being isolated and also needed – always needed.
But we had another strong, healthy child. And it was the
same – a difficult pregnancy, a difficult birth, an impossible adjustment, and
a harder life for me.
Because, my love – and you know this – I am so many things.
First and foremost, I am an artist.
And being an artist is already difficult. I must step aside
and insulate myself from the noise and madness and channel it into something –
something – anything possibly beautiful, reaching and immortal. Imagine how
much energy that must take. As I did with our children, I grow something within
me with all of my energy, all of my heart, all that I am so that it will
outlive me, us, everything.
I cannot be a mom and an artist.
 |
| Me trying to multitask - and it didn't work |
They have to be distinct. Influenced by each other but
unique creatures.
I’ve tried to tell you, so many ways, but I can only tell
you as completely as this – as an artist.
I am not wholly me without time. Time apart, time with
silence, time without even the notion of distraction. I have to be gone from
you, from my children, from my friends and from even the weather.
I have to disappear, sink into it, know nothing outside of
it.
Every sense, every hollow of my heart, every whisper in the
deepest, darkest chambers of me has to be left to itself.
No, I cannot be a mother and
an artist. I cannot be a wife and an
artist. I cannot even be a woman and
an artist. I cannot even be me and an
artist.
I have to step away from the dishes, the laundry, the
tantrums, the boogers, the flashcards, the life that makes my home so vibrant
and mine, and I have to step into something, someplace else, bringing all of
that with me and leaving so much of it behind.
You’ve tried so hard to understand. I’ve tried so hard to
tell you.
But this is it. I understand now. I have to step out of
things, I have to insist, I have to listen to the heavy, digging, beautiful and
empowering pouch weighing my soul and step away for a time to sink with it into
my work.
I am not any one thing. I cannot do all things.
I’m strong, yes, but there’s something within me that needs
more. It needs the same kind of special care and attentiveness and crafting
that my motherhood, wifehood, friendhood, womanhood requires. It cannot survive
with less. And if it dies, so does so much of me.
I wanted to do it all. I’ve tried. With all of my strength,
I’ve tried.
But I have to be honest. I cannot be a mother and an artist.
Allow me time – blocks of time – hours of time – alone and with silence and
without worry and with only me and my beautiful pouch of heavy, dirty, sharp,
bright tools that I’ve collected in living and let me make something beautiful
out of the pain, the laughter, the sickness, the failed meals, the moldy bacon
in the back of the fridge that fell between shelves and haunted us, the ten pounds
I can’t seem to lose, the beautiful day we met, the crazy neighbor who’s nicer
to her dog than our children, our child’s first word, our struggle to contain
our tempers as our children horned in on our argument, the time I climbed a tree
as a child and saw a white spider for the first time. All of it. I’ll use all
of it.
Relieve me, please. Take every other burden, please, just
for a portion of time as often as you can. Tell me I can have that, tell me when,
tell me to look forward to that, to hold on, to let it build until I can pour
it all out of me in a beautiful, graceful, forceful demonstration of what I can
make with my heart and soul. Tell me I can shut down my other senses, that I can
immerse myself, that nothing will jerk me out of my colorful and peaceful world
with shrieks of tantrums and requests for HAZMAT cleanups.
You create so much, and you impact so much, and you have
earned so much respect with what you do and what you’ve given. Allow me, then, a
time to be me – no matter what that means. Allow me an uninterrupted thought,
an uninhibited feeling, a beautiful but quiet morning as gorgeously me.
Because I cannot be all things at once. I cannot. And that’s
not a failure – simply an understanding. As much as I wish I and our society
hadn’t misled you and so many others, I need to be me – alone and quiet and
free – so much more often than we were ever told.
And this is my attempt to convince myself of this as well –
that this is a need, not a want.
And I am enough of a reason. I can finally see that now.
