Books, babies, and doing everything and nothing all at once

The baby's first flight was, fittingly, to Iowa, where I'm from.

The baby’s first flight was, fittingly, to Iowa, where I’m from.

Much of writing, at least the writing I like to read, is about that which changes you. As a longtime autobiography and memoir reader, the range of the genre is wide, but change underlies nearly every title within its grasp.

Which is perhaps why I felt it odd that upon becoming a first-time parent, I had nothing to write, of this Earth-moving, body-morphing, all-consuming experience and new identity. Recently I started reading Splinters, Leslie Jamison’s new memoir about motherhood and her divorce from her daughter’s father shortly thereafter. Twenty-four pages into the book, she somehow managed to capture the sentiment I felt, a sentiment that evaded my repeated quests to describe it, to make that which is intangible more tangible: “Those early days with my daughter felt like excess and hallucination. It was all too much, but when I tried to find language for it, it was nothing at all: milk and diapers, milk and diapers, milk and diapers.”

When I was on maternity leave by myself with my small son after my husband returned to work, I told him when he got home from the office one day that I felt like I did nothing and everything at the same time. Time ceased to exist in any kind of linear fashion. It really was milk and diapers, milk and diapers, milk and diapers, but it was also so much more.

A longtime journaler, I believe in memorializing my feelings in writing, to lend a certain tangibility to the ultimately intangible. Perhaps that is why I find it so jarring that the more words I write about first-time momming, the further I feel from capturing the universe of emotions that have accompanied it.

So, to avoid feeling overwhelmed, I anchor myself in small, tangible things that hold that whole universe, if only temporarily. I think of the Deep Sleep Baby Music playlist I still listen to while I read in the bathtub, because I miss him even when I’m even a closed door in the same house away. I think of the space between the slats of my son’s crib, how he sticks his feet straight through them in the morning when he first wakes up. I think of the adornments on the pajama fabric of those little feet: tiny lemons, tiny crabs, tiny tigers.

Maybe definition of early motherhood evades me for good reason. The small things at times feel like nothing, but it turns out they are everything.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *