A poem from Cate Kennedy to share

I seem to be constantly apologising lately for my lack of blogging action. This week, though I have a particularly good excuse, as I am doing an intensive novel writing masterclass--which, as it suggests, intensive!

It has been a rather humbling, daunting, confronting experience spending all day in a room full of accomplished fiction writers, when I feel like such a beginner, still trying to make the transition out of non-fiction and into fiction--and not just short stories, but a whole book. It has felt a bit like vomiting in public sometimes, sharing this very raw material so openly. (Sorry--that's not a very pretty picture, is it?)

What has really helped my (numerous) crises of confidence, though, has been the number of amazing messages I have been getting about The Divided Heart this week. I think this book must have just about the loveliest bunch of readers any book could hope for! I so appreciate the openness and generosity of spirit with which people write to me. Thank you Divided Hearties.

In the meantime, I just want to share this wonderful poem that writer Cate Kennedy (speaking of the wildly accomplished) sent me some time back after reading The Divided Heart.

I was sitting at my desk wrestling with a piece of writing one day, when up popped a message from Cate (that's her in the pic above), with this poem that summed up so exquisitely the very feeling I was struggling to articulate: the way children call on us/teach us to be present to the here and now--which is what is both so challenging and so wonderful about them. It was one of those synchronous moments.

Cate was one of the first women I approached for an interview for my book, only to discover she didn't then have children. (I felt mortified that I had been so presumptuous. Something about her writing had made me assume she was a mother.) She has since had a daughter, and now I wish I could do a second version with her in it!

(P.S. Just before you read the poem--for those still thinking/blogging/obsessing about housework issues, my sister has started a new blog, Work, Love, Play, and her latest post offers another interesting angle on the matter...)

THE ZEN MASTER
Cate Kennedy

I have written this
with a body stretched and sore,
stitches swollen, torn by a crowning head
tongue thick with painkillers
and in the next room a cry for milk
to set my heart off like a caged bird against my ribs

And I have written this
dragging with me a lead apron of grainy exhaustion
page prickling through a stinging mist, mouth metallic with adrenalin
while she sleeps, frowning, tender as a camellia

I have written
all I could, in a gluttonous scrawling haste
hearing her call for me, crawling through the other room
written it washed with guilt, the soup burned to the saucepan
snatching just five illicit minutes to myself, for godsakes, just five

And I have written
as she sat under my feet pulling what’s hoarded from the shelf below
cringing at the sound of tearing paper
until the computer connection suddenly went dead
and she – gummy, triumphant, seated like the Buddha –
held the cable aloft, and waved it like a prayer flag

And I have written, like today,
as she stood by my leg crying with frustration
beating a tattoo onto my thigh with both hands
her face transposing everything, urgently seeking my eyes
demanding I turn away from this pointless thing
because out there, the whole humming world is waiting
See, says her fervent outstretched finger, see there
is the outside
trust me
everything you need is there

tell me you wouldn’t rise,
given that call,
and follow her
helpless and ardent
as a chastened disciple.

Innocence and experience

Thank you for those lovely comments on my last post.

I agree with composer Christine McCombe that sweeping statements about art and motherhood are dangerous. I wanted to avoid the term 'artist-mother' in The Divided Heart for this reason, but inevitably it was used just for the sake of convenience. That said, whether or not mothering has a direct impact on the themes of your work, there could be few more life-changing experiences, both in a material and emotional sense--and it is hard to imagine this not affecting your work, or at least your process, in some way.

As Christine writes on her great blog, she feels like she's now embarking on her 'Creative Life, version 2', post-baby. It is such an interesting transition when that often liberating permission to retreat from art/work after becoming a mother slowly gives way to a new creative urgency. "I find that I am approaching things in a different way, partly because of the imperative of time and partly because of a shift in the way I think about what I am doing and why I am doing it," she says. That about sums it up, doesn't it?!

As for the language we use around art and motherhood, it's fraught. I certainly had two women refuse to be in the book because they didn't want to highlight the fact of being a woman in the eyes of the public, let alone being a mother.

More broadly, on that matter of how we talk about mothering to those who aren't parents, I have two old friends who are pregnant for the first time at the moment, and I really have to watch myself--to just take a step back and let them have their own experience without imposing my 'worldy' own. And to just listen to them talk about their expectations without being smug (something I remember hating other mothers do before I had my own babies). It's amazing how hard this can be: to find the right balance between offering advice and not being a know-it-all.

When I was pregnant and ran into parents I knew on the street, they tended to talk in extremes: either telling me it's the most wonderful thing you'll ever do; or prepare for your life to be fucked--no sleep, no time for yourself etc. Now I know that it's both these things--and everything in between--and it probably just depended which day I caught them on as to which feeling was dominating.

Ha ha--just now I've opened to a page in my notebook and found my 7-year-old son has started a list called: "People who are as smart as me." It's a very short list, I can tell you. And my name's certainly not on it. Ah well, I must be doing something right, 'cause he certainly doesn't lack confidence, does he?

From one mother to another

I have had a number of readers contact me almost apologetically to tell me that they initially avoided reading The Divided Heart because they had assumed it would be a negative take on motherhood when they enjoy having kids so much.

Fortunately, they have come to read it anyway — because it was recommended to them, or in one case because she was on the judging panel for one of those many prizes it didn’t get.

So it is lovely when someone gets in touch to say the book defied their expectations. And even more exciting when someone tells me the book inspired them to get moving with their own work, or even fed directly in to their art.

One example is this fab-sounding exhibition at the University of Florida. Four Squared is an exhibition by four artist-mothers and their experiences of making art amongst the chaos of raising young children.

Motherhood is also the theme of their art – “the push & pull of motherhood, domesticity and creativity. It is work created on an emotional rollercoaster, while burning the midnight oil, with the use of favours from friends, with the constant awareness of dishes to be washed.”

Most recently I was contacted by Iranian-born, British-raised, LA-based photographer and mother, Parisa Taghizadeh. She has made a series of works entitled “Mother”, one of which is in an upcoming show in New York, MOTHER/mother at the A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.

MOTHER/mother is an exhibition of work made by artists from around the world within the years immediately following a pregnancy or the birth of a child.

If you are lucky enough to be visiting the US over the coming months, these shows look well worth a visit.

Just the other day, I came across a review of The Divided Heart that ran in the April issue of Art Monthly (check out the great cover!). Reviews by artists always make me nervous, so it was great to read Denise Ferris’s comment that the book made her feel “uplifted”.

“This book normalises the mother and artist combination by presenting women who continue to practise their craft in spite of social or their own confused expectations to choose one role over the other,” she writes.

“These women have continued to make work in spite of difficult personal experiences, and in spite of potent mixed emotions, self-doubt, confusion and exhaustion. To continue to work as an artist is not always as seamless as we hope. And that is the reality presented in this book.”

One criticism, though, was the lack of single mothers and gay parents in the book. Funnily enough, there are both in The Divided Heart. Perhaps it’s an indication of just how universal the issues around art and motherhood are that this wasn’t more obvious.

A portrait of the artist as a mother

I hoard my clean washing (note I say ‘my’, meaning ‘my family’s’, hmm…) till it reaches a pile big enough to justify a night spent folding it in front of the box — which in my case, not having a telly, means a DVD on the computer.

Having finished the first series of Mad Men — and since this week’s pile had grown to a size equalling a full feature-length movie (see how fun it can get?!) — I decided to watch Alice Neel, a haunting documentary about this extraordinary American painter.

Neel made portraits — of friends, family, lovers, poets, artists, and ordinary people... anyone who crossed her radar — infused with emotional intensity, her sitters challenging the viewer with their direct gaze.

I actually wrote a long section about Neel in The Divided Heart, which was cut out in the final edit. Embarrassingly, my first draft of the book came in at over 120,000 words, more than double that requested by the publisher, so there was plenty of material left on the cutting-room floor, so to speak, much of it investigations into women artists I admire.

As a woman and single mother, Alice Neel (1900–1984) did it tough, but remained utterly dedicated to her art.

The question of whether her obsessive devotion to painting — and the instability that came with that — was to the detriment of her children becomes the unintentional focus of the film, which was made by her grandson, Andrew Neel.

Neel spent much of her life on welfare and was isolated as an artist until the late 1960s and 70s, when the women’s movement embraced her.

In the film she says: “I always felt in a sense that I didn’t have the right to paint because I had two sons and I had so many things that I should be doing and here I was painting.

“… I wanted everything. I didn’t want just art; I wanted everything. Everyone wants everything but then they have to get practical and settle for a certain amount. But maybe I was never that practical.”

Neel lost her first two children, one through death, the other taken from her for complex reasons. These traumas permeated her work, its themes of motherhood, loss and anxiety, for the rest of her career.

In the film, her remaining, adult children have a complex relationship with Neel — loving her as a mother and friend, full of admiration for her work, and yet both nursing hurts that have profoundly shaped them as people.

“I don’t like bohemian culture,” her now very right-wing son, Richard, says. “People are hurt by it. I was hurt by it. People who are engaged in it don’t care about, or feel responsible for, those who are around them, or who depend on them.”

Her second son, Hartley (now a doctor), was badly abused by one of Neel’s long-term partners, and Richard’s father, communist intellectual Sam Brody. It is not stated directly but is suggested that Neel ignored this abuse because she desperately needed Brody’s belief in her as an artist at a time when her work had fallen out of public and critical favour.

And yet, through all his sadness, Hartley has the insight to say: “If she had been satisfied with the paragon of what women were supposed to be in her era, she would have accomplished nothing. She might have been the greatest mother and housewife and all that… [but] this was the other side of the coin in terms of the way Alice saw things. She didn’t want that stuff.”

By the end of this, I tell you, my washing was neatly folded but my heart was a complete shambles.

Cop this--apparently women can't write good sex

I realise this is veering into completely different territory, but I was just wondering if anyone took any notice of the recent debate fuelled by the comments of Kate Copstick, the new publisher of British magazine Erotic Review, who said women a not naturally good writers of erotic fiction?

You may have heard her talking to Ramona Koval and Linda Jaivin on Radio National’s Book Show a few months back.

Basically Copstick (what a name, eh?) said she doesn’t want her magazine “drowning in oestrogen”. That women “complicate, they add layers to sex, and sex in the Erotic Review I think is a beautiful, pure thing which deserves to be written about, celebrated for itself, and it doesn’t need a subtext, it doesn't even need a context.”

She also complained of young women who think they’re writing about sex but are actually writing about sexual politics, which is “not very sexy”.

“The Erotic Review is not there for women to have a go,” she told the BBC. “I don’t believe in equality, I believe in elitism. I want the very best writing and women are not passionately devoted to sex.”

What do others think about this? Surely it’s a bit scary that the owner of the world’s leading erotic journal has concluded that only men can write sex well.

Or is she just judging from the perspective of her predominantly male readership? (Maybe female readers would like a bit of context and subtext if she was interested in catering for them. After all, her target reader is "a dirty old man with two PhDs"...)

Surely some women are passionately devoted to sex (at least some of the time). And besides, when sex becomes “complicated” does it automatically cease being a beautiful thing?

Isn’t erotic fiction without any subtext or context really just porn? Albeit perhaps well-written, literary porn, as Copstick would argue.

I'm not really sure of my stance on this one, but I'm intrigued by this argument nonetheless...

The burden of time

Sorry that it’s been a while between posts. I have been on a family holiday. And I use that word advisedly. I mean, I do appreciate a change of scene and all, but ‘holiday with children’… more like shifting the whole shebang to somewhere with fewer distractions and less support.

At one point, I even found myself fantasising about having myself thrown in gaol for a couple of weeks (months?). I was thinking new exercise regime, learning a new language, perhaps even one of those creative writing courses they teach in prisons nowadays…

Sorry, I exaggerate (a little). The holidays were mostly fun. And how good to have a couple of weeks without the crazy school/kinder/work/drop-off/pick-up/make someone’s lunch/dinner routine. But, oh, how I miss a lazy morning in bed reading a book...

So back to reality. Or perhaps the reality we create.

In the post today, I received a review copy of the latest Buddhism for Mothers book, the somewhat awkwardly but straightforwardly titled Buddhism for Mothers of Schoolchildren by Sarah Napthali.

I have to admit I have not properly read the original book, though other mothers mention it in conversation all the time. But I took a quick peek at this new one, read the first line of the first chapter (titled ‘Stress’ — ha ha, why would that be?!) and think I have to read this book.

“Mothers of schoolchildren can have a tense relationship with time and, in some cases, an obsessive attachment to using it efficiently,” writes Napthali.

Isn’t this the wonderful thing about writing — someone else always manages to describe some emotion or thought or idea you believed was just your own particular neuroses, and suddenly you realise it’s a common, explainable feeling?

Tense would be putting it mildly, for me. I have a perverse relationship with time — almost as perverse as my relationship with housework (and very much related).

I now find myself regularly writing time as ‘TIME’. Sorry, I’m not yelling, exactly, but time has come to be one of those hugely loaded terms for me. One of those big words, like LOVE or MONEY.

As I wrote in The Divided Heart, I don’t think I even had a relationship with time before I had children. Now that every moment alone has to be bought, borrowed, begged or stolen, I feel like I’ve gone to the other extreme — unhealthily attached to making every minute count.

Which of course only becomes it’s own burden — because even when you’ve “decided just to relax” (how’s that for an oxymoron), you’ve still got the clock ticking in the back of your head.

Multi-tasking has become such a habit for me now that I find myself doing it obsessively at times when it is just not useful. For example, when trying to write — which would actually benefit from a bit of single-minded focus.

It can become a tad ridiculous when you find yourself trying to brush your teeth, make a phone call and do the dishes at the same time. And, no, unfortunately I am not making that up! It wasn't until the other person answered their phone that I realised it just wasn’t going to work.

The neverending housework debate...

So much juicy stuff in those housework comments. My partner and I went out last night and your feedback gave me the strength to wade in to this thorny territory and try to decide on some solution.

I have wondered whether if I didn’t work, I would feel clearer about this. Would it be a case of, ‘OK, he works to bring in the money; so this is my job.’ But that ignores the fact that being home with kids is as much of a full-time job.

My feeling has always been that if there is still work to do in the evenings (as there always is), then let’s just get in there and do it. Together. It’s not like as a mother at home, you’ve been slack all day and just haven’t completed your jobs in some allotted work hours. Household chores can roll on and on without end most of the time.

What intrigues me is all the underlying, unconscious assumption at play. I know my partner considers us equal in his conscious mind, but how hard is it for us all to really get out from under the backlog of history that has shaped us and our in-built cultural assumptions?

A writer friend of mine was saying the other day that it’s kind of sad this situation where we know that in many ways that traditional division of roles worked for a good reason. But at what cost?

The problem is our economy still relies on having someone looking after the house, but women now have different expectations for their lives — that they will be able to fulfil all those needs and desires that once had to be suppressed.

You just should never have taken “that bite of the apple”, another (male) friend said. There is no turning back now.

So why are we stuck half way? We have (tacitly?) agreed that it is not fair for either gender to be stuck in those old-fashioned roles without choice, but somehow that full exchange just doesn’t seem to have occurred, especially domestically.

Home Girl’s comments about feeling that the domestic space will be seen as a reflection of her state of mind really resonated with me. So much about having children is surrendering to a lack of control. But this is something I struggle with every day.

As for Susan's comment that anyone can do the laundry but no-one can paint that picture is so true, but always comes with a big 'but' for me (unless you can pay someone else to do your laundry)...

So many times people have told me to ditch the housework in favour of creativity. But how long can that go on before everything just starts falling apart? And at what point is that just not conducive to anything?

I have spoken to other writers who say they have come to terms with the fact that the house has to be clean before they can settle down to writing — and that’s just the way it is.

When I am completely bogged down in housework, though, and can see the creative work retreating further and further from my grasp, the thought that really gets me down is that, at the end of the day, no-one will congratulate me for this. Have you ever heard at a funeral the line: ‘She kept a beautiful house.’ Well, maybe that happens.

But you are far more likely to be remembered for the grand-scale, publically recognised work that you did. Doesn’t this just sum up history for women?

Oh, God, I could just go on and on...

But thank you all so much for your inspiring comments. Women never cease to amaze me with their wisdom and insight!

Anyway, this is the way the conversation went: ‘Can we agree that we put the kids to bed at 8. We decide what jobs have to be done tonight and what can be left for later (i.e. the weekend). We go hell-for-leather getting them done, with the pact that we will aim to have them done by 9 or 9.30. Then we both stop and get on with what we want to be doing. Full stop.’

How does that sound?

He agreed. Will keep you posted...