life of dreams

mother's day, inscrutability, negative test, joy

There are times when life feels inscrutable to me. When I look at the lumber of my life and don’t feel sure what I am building. I feel that way in my mothering right now. My eldest is nearly four and a half, my youngest is almost two. I think postpartum energy bore me along for a long time, and in some ways tethered me to a particular maternal identity — “mom of a baby.” But my baby is less of a baby now, he’s running around and jumping, demanding oreos, and telling me what’s what. So, where does that leave me? What am I building?

I wrote a small poem this morning, feeling a little morose. “no poem except pile of blankets,” I guess it could be called. Or maybe “vast pastures.” Maybe it doesn’t need a name. But I think I’m circling around that “no-man’s-land” or storylessness. “no right choice. no wrong one either.”

I recently thought I might be (accidentally) pregnant because my period was over seven days late. And then my period came. Oh, strange threshold I stood in for a few days there, waiting, taking a negative pregnancy test, wondering if I should test again. Sure but not sure. “oatmeal, cereal, two boys on the trampoline.” We want more children, but not quite yet. I am spending some time recalibrating, and trying to focus on work for a time. But, that held breath, imagining both versions of life. Feeling frightened and hopeful at the same time. I really couldn’t tell what I wanted. Why did it almost feel like being pregnant again would be easier than not being pregnant again? That would give me a story, right? I hadn’t realized how much I was relying on the narrative structure of birth and postpartum to carry me along. How much that had become a little enclosure for my selfhood these past few years. Now that I’ve set it aside, even for a little while (one year? maybe two?) I feel sort of adrift.

negative test

I have to ask myself, what sweetness have I not uncovered yet? What new story can I allow myself to slip into, even temporarily? This interim between “mom of baby” selves — who is she? I want to go back there, but I want to enjoy not being there too, you know? Be here while I am. Myself, in a not-pregnant, not-postpartum body, a not-pregnant, not-postpartum mind — still exhausted, still fogged over and pressed into, but differently. What to find here? What new rooms in me?

I feel so ambivalent about mother’s day this year. Sometimes I think being a mom is the most interesting thing about me, or maybe I have thought that for the past few years — I don’t think that right now. In the pile of things I am, it is just one of the things. My boys have shaken my life up so much that it feels unrecognizable, but it is still mine. I have so much more love and devotion inside of me than I knew. I give so much of it to them, so happily. But there’s more! What to shower that love on? What to devote myself to? These questions feel pressing. I want to live big, you know? I feel like I’ve been clinging to reading like it might give me a new layer of identity, or maybe sewing, or maybe wearing cool clothes, or writing poems, or whatever — but that’s all just “stuff”. Just that lumber. Without all of the things I do, what do I love? What lights me up? If I build nothing from the lumber of my life, is it still worthy? If I lay down my tools for a while and rest?

I discovered the singer Julie Doiron yesterday, and her songs immediately made sense to me. I texted my friends “I think this is exactly the kind of music I would make if I was a musician.” One song, “The Life of Dreams” is so simple, simply repeating “I’m living the life of dreams, / with good people all around me, / I”m living the life of dreams,” over and over again.

As soon as I heard this song, I just felt joy welling up inside of me. Because I really am living the life of dreams. Good people all around me. So lucky, in so many ways. Maybe it’s because some of the things we have taken for granted for so long feel like they are hanging in the balance right now — I feel crushed by gratefulness these days. Surprised by joy. Life as it is now is good, I hope it remains that way. It won’t always. Bad things happen all the time to people who just want to live their own life of dreams. Bad things will happen to me. But right now, so much good, you know? In all my inscrutability, the good life is mine to build. It’s right here in front of me. Pile of blankets. A mom on mother’s day, awash in strange joy. Life must go on, I have to keep building something — but from today’s inscrutability, I feel like standing and saying that all of this is good just the way it is. I feel like laying my tools down and breathing in and out. The mother at rest, even just momentarily. A feast of joy, not a crumb. Maybe for a while not naming everything, letting some parts of the self remain mysterious and undefined. Mother, and. What about that?

This perfect hat, an unprompted mothers day gift from a friend. I wear it like armor.

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For mother’s day, gotta shout out my zine about motherhood literature! You can buy it in print here. It’s also available as a digital download. I also wrote an essay about motherhood literature last May on Substack — embedded below!

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happy mother’s day!
xoxo,

Amy