Finding the Words Again

On life transitions, adjustments, and making a go of it

I HAD A BABY LAST WEEK. This is my second child, and the logistics of caring for my toddler while my husband and I figured out where to be, all while recovering from giving birth, seemed overwhelming and truly daunting. I was lucky to have a smooth and uncomplicated experience, and already things are much, much less stressful than the first time around, when I had my baby in the first week of the pandemic and the global shutdown. That time, I was struggling to breastfeed, pumping eight times a day around the clock, while my husband was searching for formula during a nationwide diaper and formula shortage, and my relatives were separated from us due to a closed country border. In retrospect, I can see how we were both a little traumatized by the experience. I don’t use that word lightly; trauma is an event that shapes you, a cataclysm for the body and the self, leaving its mark in ways you only truly discover much later.

This time, I know better about boundaries and limits; I know what I want to achieve as a parent, and I know that guilt, mind-numbing stress, and self-shame don’t serve me or my baby. I’m calmer, and more capable; not just about the hundred small tasks that newborns require, but also about the crisis of identity that comes from becoming a parent and being a parent-writer. I’ve learned that while having a child changes you — and I have yet to fully discover how having two snarls that picture — it doesn’t destroy you. It doesn’t have to eradicate you. It instead adds richness and complexity, nuance and feeling and experience. It means less writing is possible but truer writing might be possible. It means finding slices of time in the day, small bars of mind-space shot through with sunlight, moments of quiet when the baby is sleeping and the toddler is coloring at her table, and you find yourself just beginning to grope for the right words to say something, finding that part of yourself, the writer, as timid as a deer hiding in the forest of your mind, but maybe, maybe, ready to take a step out into that dew-frosted meadow —

It’s early yet. I’m still recovering, still finding my rhythm. But I’m up and about and learning about my new child, learning about what my new life could look like in the months ahead. And the writing will return, I’m sure of it. My novel, MINOR PROPHETS, is out in the world, and I got a touching fan letter about it this week, reminding me that my words are out there and they’re occasionally moving people. The new novel, which I pushed through most of a first draft of before my due date, awaits. Soon, soon, I’ll return to the quiet rhythm of the work and discover what the novel needs.

Roundup up of News:

• I’m happy to report that the podcast, Writerly Bites, is back in action with more weekly tips to get you writing.

• I’m delighted to be teaching a ten month long novel-writing course with Pioneer Valley Writer's Workshop in the new year. Stop by the site and learn more about it if you want to take your novel seriously in 2024; there’s an upcoming open house on Zoom where you can ask questions and learn more about the program.

• I wrote an essay for Lit Hub’s CrimeReads about how every novel is a cult novel.