Perhaps a more appropriate title would be Week 3: Where art thou sanity
Tennessee has been blanketed in white for most of the week, which has meant a week at home with the kids. For anyone with small children, you pretty much know that day one snowed in is magical. By day three, you have to get really creative.
Other than covid, this is really the longest I’ve ever been inside without being able to leave my house, and I think that forced me to really process a lot this week. In between the bustle of trying to keep a normal work life rhythm and trying to help keep the kids entertained, I thought a lot about those days trapped inside in 2020 and I felt my mental health tugged in a way it hasn’t been in a long time.
I pushed myself even harder to create. To push limits with my work and the stories I wanted to tell. I picked up illustration again, and even though I spent more time being frustrated with that than anything, I’m proud of the progress I made there.
I thought about my daily rhythms. The ones I put in place to keep me moving steadily forward, even on the days I’d rather stay curled up in bed. It’s really true that we become the thoughts and things we do repetitively. I thought about what rhythms I want to carry me forward, moving into a fresh year.
I also asked myself a lot of really hard questions about parenting. About what I want the kids to remember. I spent the week cooking absolutely everything from scratch and it was a slow steady rhythm that I really liked, and so I asked myself what I want their relationship to food to be when they get older. About what I hope their answers will be someday when someone asks them about their childhood.
Motherhood has given me pause. It’s ignited a tenacity and a hope in the stories that we are building, daily, just by existing in this space with them. This project is doing the same, and for that I’m so grateful.
