On the Common 137

Craziness and creativity.

Hello everyone,

I’m writing this on the Saturday before the election. I don’t know yet what you’ll be seeing in next week’s headlines. My prayer is that you are reading this on a peaceful Thursday morning when people are going to work and school as they usually would.

My advice this week is to read the article, not just the headline; take an ounce of skepticism into everything you read; and understand that you can’t know everything. Speculation spreads like wildfire the week of an election. Like Shakespeare told us, usually…eventually….” the truth will out.” Even if it’s a truth you don’t like.

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The Part Where There’s an Essay: Motherhood, the Creative Endeavor

Every year in October, I post a picture of myself and my little family from over a decade ago now. It was the year that we had been compared to the Weasley family from Harry Potter the most. The arrival of our baby girl made the picture complete; once she got to the age when I regularly put her in pigtails, we heard the comparison from Potterheads all the time. We weren’t red-haired, but otherwise, the similarities were too big to miss.

That year I had decided that I would sew everyone some school-style robes for a family costume. It was the heyday of Project Runway, so every afternoon during the kids’ quiet time, I’d run downstairs during what little time I had, to lay out fabric across our laminate floor and cut it into shapes borrowed from a printable online pattern. Out with the paper, scissors, slippery black fabric, and chalk. Measure, cut, fold, try again. I threw away a lot of fabric, too.

Anytime I’d embrace a project like this, I had to be at peace with the fact that the house would go to pieces around me. The highchair would be sticky; the sink would pile up higher with dishes; I could hear the cobwebs creeping in closer as I worked at my crafty task. Dinner would be a rush job.

But, like so many before me, I found that as a mom, making time for these little diversions brought me a different kind of joy. If I pressed on to keep creating, to push my skills in cooking or sewing or writing, or whatever at all -- my heart and soul were fed in a different way than the usual, everyday way. It was a reality that caused a tug in my heart often. How much do we prioritize creativity, hobbies, and personal enjoyment when mothering little ones is such a high-demand occupation, both physically and spiritually?

I am glad to see this forum and others prioritizing creative pursuits for moms. There are so many reasons why mothers ought to “play” in front of their children, to name a few: demonstrating the importance of “being bad at something,” and learning a skill; showing the wholeness of themselves as a person, embracing other gifts besides those which are on display every day in motherhood; treasuring time spent on beauty and placemaking. 

However, I’d love to remind us that the everyday, mundane days are creative, too. As we march on through our Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, as we pull on the socks and put the laundry in the dryer -- we are creating. What we are creating is larger: a culture.

Culture-making frequently takes a back seat in conversations behind that conversation that’s always with us: culture-warring. But when we lean into crafting a culture for our children, we begin to see the power in the everyday. As we explore ways in which we’d like our homes and families to function, we lay down habits, expectations, and shared joys. Once these are put together, they form a family culture.

One of the brilliant things about a family culture is the diversity inherent in the idea. Every family is different. You and your husband will have traditions from your own families of origin; you will have celebrated holidays, eaten meals, recognized birthdays, and carried on ordinary days in a unique way. Once you bring those into a home together, your children inherit your own culture that you’ll pass on to them. They will carry it forward into their own homes and lives.

A family culture is made up of so many shared habits and ideas, big and small:

Where do you keep your shoes?

How do you fold your towels?

Where do you sit at the dinner table?

Do you open your Christmas gifts all at once, or one at a time?

What does a birthday breakfast look like?

How do we prepare for church on Sundays?

All of these things, plus a thousand more, make up a home and family culture. And you, mom, are a powerful creative force, in initiating and sustaining this culture. Even as you survey your neglected creative project that’s gathering dust in a corner, you’re being creative every day. Do not lose heart. You are laying down the framework of a life.

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For the Anglophiles

As seen on Twitter:

Hilton, near Apppleby.

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Reads & Listens of the Week

The Surprising Rescue of the Country’s Most Beautiful Baptist Church: I used to attend First Night Boston events in this church. It’s now pastored by a friend of a friend. (side note: Jaime is a great Twitter follow because sometimes he pulls things out of the church attic.)

We’re reading Jane Eyre right now for book club, so it was marvelous timing that Andrew wrote about the question of calling in relation to the book.

The Rest is History is doing a series on America in 1968. When people talk about our times being unprecedented, this timeframe is usually my first attempt at saying that other Americans have had it hard, too.

I appreciated this Q&A at the end of season four of You’re Not Crazy.

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...the trouble with being patient....is that, generally speaking, there's no one to see you doing it." - Susanna Clarke, The Wood at Midwinter