Between the Covers

Quiz via ad_lumen


J.R.R. Tolkien: Lord of the Rings. You are
entertaining and imaginative, creating whole
new worlds around yourself. Well loved, you
have a whole league of imitators, none of which
is quite as profound as you are. Stories and
songs give a spark of joy in the middle of your
eternal battle with the forces of evil.


Which literature classic are you?
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This hits close to the mark, although I'm not aware that I have any "imitators." :-)

Musings About Motherhood

Every so often, I surprise myself with my writing: suddenly discovering a truth I had not consciously understood before.

Today I was writing about a character who, like me, had become pregnant by choice, but her choice had been made out of love for her husband rather than a desire to become a mother. He had a deep desire and need to be a father, and she wanted to give him that.

During her pregnancy, she struggles with a deep fear of the fact that her life will never be the same again. The rest of her life will not be her own. She will be tied to the needs of the stranger, the alien, growing within her body. Her husband points out that her life has not been the same since she came to his country, or since they married. That life continues to change.

It was that last bit that caught my attention. "Life is change" is such a truism that I don't think it's something I've ever thought deeply about. I haven't regretted much in my life, but sometimes I still wrestle with the fact that as a mother certain options are no longer as open to me, simply because my child has a primary claim on my resources. I'm no Mommy Martyr, but there are things that I would like to do that I will not, because it would demand too much of the time and energy I owe to my daughter.

I don't think that I have ever accepted the full truth of my own statement that becoming a mother was an initiatory experience: one that made me a different person than I was before. I have not been particularly graceful in my acceptance of the new life, or fully accepted the fact that life continues to change, and we can never count on any options remaining open to us.

We continue to have choice. We always make choices. At the very least we can choose how we face our options, even if we might wish they were different than they are. Sometimes we need to fight for different options, or refuse to be defined by expectations. But sometimes we need to adapt and grow. I've done some of that in becoming a mother, but not as deeply or with as much maturity as I might have.

One of my best friends told me that when he saw Kill Bill 2, the Bride reminded him of me in the fact that becoming a mother changed her so radically.

I felt a real twinge when he told me this. I didn't want to be told that being a mother had changed me. The fact is: it has changed me. And there is no going back.

But is that a bad thing? In my mind, when I am ruthlessly honest, it always has been. And that's something that has hurt me, and it certainly hasn't helped my child. But I've never stopped to reflect on it with any depth, or to make any radical, meaningful choices. I've been caught up in knee-jerk emotional reactions to a stereotype of motherhood and a particular image of myself.

Time to start renovating a box. . .