The Secretly Most Creative Moment
Welcome to the World, Thisbe Lowe.
Maybe from the beginning, this newsletter has been an exercise in proving the ways creativity and parenting exist in tandem and not, as is so often the assumption, as incompatible states of being, two lifestyles that aren’t meant to be lived together.
Almost three weeks ago I gave birth to my second beautiful daughter, Thisbe. After a grueling and restrictive pregnancy, labor and delivery went smoothly, quickly, calmly even. In NYC the hospitals are usually built of chaos but the morning I went into labor the labor and delivery floor was empty. There was an impossible gentleness to the vibe, the empty beds, silent hallways, the laid back nurses and doctors with nothing to do but check on me. It was strange and unlikely and the opposite of my experience giving birth almost five years ago in the same hospital, triaging in a closet, doctors too busy to check on me for so many hours that they entirely missed my progression from 5 to 10 cm dilated snd were in a low-key panic when they finally remembered to check on me again.
The days after Thisbe’s birth have been calm too, relatively, and a reminder of the way creativity presents itself in even the most basic and primitive of life stages.
We are, right now, making something. A new version of a family, a sisterhood between my daughters, an expanded universe. It is undeniably imaginative and rooted in every skill I use when I create other peoples families and lives on the page. Who will these girls be to one another? What does bedtime look like now? How do we occupy our space? Who are we now that we are four? What are our family rituals and how do we build them from scratch? It’s the same, isn’t it, as novel writing?
When Fia asks questions about Thisbe, about this new life, I have to pause and search for the right language the same way I do when I’m looking for sentences to fill my books with. I want it to be precise and beautiful, my description of how things feel and how we are going to navigate it. I want it to be honest.
At times, both girls need me at the same time, and the feeling is overwhelming, panic inducing even. It feels like a brick wall, a problem with no solution. Except I know that feeling too. It is the part of the book I struggle to write— not the explorative beginning or the cathartic end. It is the place I find myself on my worst writing days— in a corner I need to write myself out of, a place where I’m looking for dots to connect and I have to trust that they will appear. I have to trust me, that I’ll see them, that I’ll find the path, that I’ll come up with a way.
I am finding a way. Like writing, the details are the thing. The tiny moments. Letting Fia pick between a green floral or pink striped onesie for Thisbe. The way Fia sits next to me nursing Thisbe and takes care of her own baby doll, who was once my childhood baby doll, Twinkie, by making her a plastic food soup and spooning fake milk from a cup since Twinkie, apparently, does not want to breastfeed. The Sandra Boynton books Fia chooses to memorize to read to Thisbe. The way Thisbe’s cry has a hitch in the center of it just like Fias used to. The familiar shape of the grey rocking chair I spent hours in with Fia and the tiny joy of being back there again. Even the middle of the night wake ups are a detail— the quality of light, the way the dark makes it feel secret, mine and hers, ours.
If I focus on the details, it makes sense. If I focus on the details, the story easily emerges.
I’ve never been a huge planner with my writing, and that too helps me now. I don’t know the beats of the story we are writing, the story of this family that isn’t like the family I grew up in, though I borrow the Saturday morning chocolate frosted donuts my dad bought me, and oldies playing in the background, and piles of books read on the couch or in bed lit up with a tiny reading light bought by best friends who know late night under-the-covers reading was one of the happiest parts of my particular childhood. I borrow the best details from those long ago days, and invent the rest.
Don’t tell me it’s not creative, parenting. Don’t tell me it takes away from my writing. I am alive with imagination right now, in a beige nursing bra with zero actual support, tiny Thisbe strapped to my chest, asleep, me wanting to write a novel during her luxurious naps but knowing my brain can’t currently do that, listening instead to her itty bitty snores, my hips still hurting a little, ghostly reminders of pregnancy and labor, the world both paused and brilliantly alive, moving, hurtling forward.
I don’t know the beats of this new story or all the ones I will write next. But I already know this new baby, like the one before her, only adds more imagination, more creativity, more storytelling possibilities, more magic to my world.
Don’t tell me parenting robs us of creative energy, artistic ability. Robs us of sleep, sure. Clarity sometimes. Energy and time. But not creative spirit. Not magic. Not stories. I am brimming with those. We are all, here, brimming with stories and magic and the wonder of what comes next.
News
ONE JAR OF MAGIC comes out in August in a beautifully redesigned paperback cover by designer: Laura Mock and Illustrator: Matt Rockefeller. If you missed the hardcover (or read it and loved it and want to share it with another magic-loving reader) now’s the time to grab the paperback version!!
Recommendations
As an avid (professional level, honestly) cheese lover, I have to say that this cheese is my absolute current favorite. My best friend brought it to me after the birth of my first daughter, and it was glorious and then I could never find it again. After Thisbe was born, she asked what she could bring me and I said THAT CHEESE YOU BROUGHT ME LAST TIME, and it turns out it is just as glorious and actually totally find-able and worth getting. I can’t recommend it enough. Trust me, you need it. It may be my actual current favorite food.
This book of essays on motherhood is the best book on motherhood I’ve read. It made me laugh while nursing at 2am— I listened to it on audio this past week— and it also made me cry, and really what else could you want from a book?
I also happened to really love this novel which is a friendship novel and reads a bit like a collection of vignettes and has a poignancy and readability that hit me just right. It’s a perfect book for lazing on the couch with a coffee and taking your time reading and thinking and letting the afternoon linger.
Until next time!