The North Star

As I near the end of my first full calendar year of being a mother, I'm still trying to figure out my new role in the world.

“There was something so valuable about what happened when one became a mother. For me it was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me. Liberating because the demands that children make are not the demands of a normal ‘other.’ The children’s demands on me were things that nobody ever asked me to do. To be a good manager. To have a sense of humor. To deliver something that somebody could use. And they were not interested in all the things that other people were interested in, like what I was wearing or if I were sensual. Somehow all of the baggage that I had accumulated as a person about what was valuable just fell away. I could not only be me—whatever that was—but somebody actually needed me to be that. If you listen to [your children], somehow you are able to free yourself from baggage and vanity and all sorts of things, and deliver a better self, one that you like. The person that was in me that I liked best was the one my children seemed to want.” – Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison with her youngest son, Slade, in 1978. (Photo credit: Jill Krementz via the New York Times)

An often shared story about Toni Morrison is that she used to wake up at 4 a.m. every day so she could write before her children woke up. It’s meant to be a revealing anecdote that demonstrates Toni’s steadfast commitment to writing (a similarly telling quote of hers that I often paraphrase: “The only things I have to do, is mother these children, and write.”), which it obviously does. But as a person who routinely preferred setting a 3 or 4 a.m. alarm to write a paper or cram for a test when I was in college (as opposed to pulling all-nighters), the timing of Toni’s writing hours isn’t what has me pressed at the thought of this level of devotion…now that I too am a mother, what I am absolutely gobsmacked by is her ability to actually write, consistently and beautifully, at prescribed hours, while also working full time and being a (single!!!!) mother (of TWO kids!!!!).

One of the harshest truths about parenting is that time is not on your side. Whether it’s the cruelty of the swift movement that morphs your newborn is a toddler, or the way said sudden toddler has a way about her that just makes everything take longer to do/start/finish, time is simply a parent’s greatest foe.

It also haunts you hour to hour, as your windows of time to get things done are now dictated by sleep schedules and childcare availability. Gone are the days of doing things on your own time, when you feel like it.

Which brings me to this moment, typing as quickly as my perpetually sleep deprived and foggy thoughts can keep up with, trying to write while my daughter sleeps, even though I’m not – and haven’t been for days – in the mood to write. But this essay is already going to be a week late and I promised myself that I would commit to this project (my Virgo moon has been dragging myself all week over missing my self-imposed biweekly deadline). So here I am, sneaking in paragraphs where I can, begging my heart, mind and fingertips to coalesce around a common goal.

Much in the same way writing is now charged with the dissonance of having much to say but not a lot of time to say it, so too is cooking, something I used to immerse myself in without thought. I’d spend hours pouring over recipes, researching which CSA to join, leisurely strolling up and down grocery aisles, binge watching The Office and Insecure while meal prepping and cooking the days away. Even after Leila-Noor was first born, when I was on parental leave, I was able to sustain this practice, partly because newborns sleep a lot (and don’t move independently) and partly because I didn’t have to deal with the distractions of a job.

Now that LN’s a toddler – and an extremely mobile and curious one at that – and I have a very demanding job, I’m finding myself feeling more burned out with each passing day. I haven’t wanted to write or cook like I used to. I’m untethered from so many of the things that make me feel grounded and whole, and it’s making me second guess a lot. But even with all the doubt and uncertainly circling around me, I am so acutely aware that this time in my life is finite. With every passing day, my baby is closer to becoming her own person, independent of me, but still influenced by me – another kind of dissonance I have to reckon with as a parent with a full time job outside of parenting (because as we all know, parenting a young child is its own full time job, and then some). It’s absolutely vital that I not only figure out how to best manage my time and that the time I’m not with her is spent wisely, but also that what I’m doing is meaningful and serves the world in a way that will make her proud.

All of this is especially prescient for me as I inch closer to my 40th birthday – Toni was just about 40 when she published her first novel, a feat I’ve lauded as the goalpost for my own “break” as a writer ever since I decided to chase this dream just before I turned 34. And while I have written some pieces I’m deeply proud of since then, I think I have a long way to go when it comes to becoming the writer I’ve always wanted to be.

Look, I’m not saying I need to or will ever be on the same level as Toni fucking Morrison. But the longer I parent, the more I connect with her as a mother-writer, and the clearer it becomes to me just how aggressively finite time is. It makes me wonder: what’s really worth spending my time doing, especially if it takes time away from my darling girl?