On momentum, motherhood, and the dance between time and trust

Life {behind the scenes} 11.24

Heartbeats started as an email to friends and family, a way to share poetry and connection during a new season of grief and motherhood. Today’s letter is a return to that more intimate invitation. I hope you enjoy a little peak of our life behind the scenes!

More than in any other human relationship, overwhelmingly more, motherhood means being instantly interruptible, responsive, responsible.

—Tille Olsen

Hello.

How are you, loves?

A dapple of sunlight streams through recently hung green curtains in our new bedroom and a smattering of fine grit coats everything, no matter how many times we vacuum or clean, testament to a timeline we didn’t exactly choose for moving in.

It has been a month.

After closing on our new house (a quaint, Victorian-style home built in 1910 with a white picket fence and tall ceilings) in mid-October, we planned to give ourselves some time to have a few renovation projects completed, enjoy the holidays, and move in by January 1st. After all, the house we bought is just a stone’s throw from the house we’ve been renting. We could move gradually this time, as opposed to the dramatic, cross-country trek we made last year.

Well, that didn’t happen.

Fast forward to a text message on November 1st, alerting our landlords to a potential rodent problem (there were rats, lots of them), and we decided to accelerate our move, staying in six different places in the last two weeks while finishing renovations, hurriedly shuffling boxes between houses literally before the dust settled (did I mention organizing a community memorial and Thanksgiving in there somewhere?). Needless to say, the unexpected stress and chaos highlighted where I’m still resisting life and my very human place in it.

One of the most challenging aspects of this season of motherhood and starting a family has been making room for the unplanned. Catalogs of well-worn planners with hourly schedules might hint that I’ve leaned on managing my life down to the minutia as a way to navigate the world. I’m excellent at knowing what time it is without looking at a clock, amazing at estimating how long a project will take to finish, and calculating my daily routines for the maximum level of productivity.

Or so I thought.

Motherhood and marriage have put a wrench in all those perfectly curated systems, leaving me totally befuddled with how to predict or plan my time.

“I just can’t get any momentum going,” I’ve complained out loud on multiple occasions to anyone who will listen. I struggle to maintain an exercise routine, follow through on my writing goals, or see significant progress in most areas beyond the daily necessities.

On my worst days, I clench my fists in frustration, determined to carry on planning and managing my time the way I used to, hoping it will eventually work, knowing deep down, it can’t.

I’m in a new era. I’m in a relationship with two other beautiful humans who have their own needs, values, priorities, and schedules. I’m the mother of a toddler, for crying out loud.

Still, shifting my mindset and expectations has been rocky at best. Like a teenager learning to drive a manual, there are thrilling moments when I think I’m figuring out how to let go, relax, and trust. Everything shifts into gear with delight. And then there are frightful days when I think the whole world is falling apart and I won’t ever be able to get where I want to go.

“You can thank end-stage capitalism for that¹,” my therapist reminds me when I share my latest struggles with either/or thinking and an internal sense of urgency that everything needs to happen all at once, right now.

Just hearing her say the words “end-stage capitalism” brings relief. I’m not insane. I’m not broken. My internal conflict of values has external roots. My struggle to see the worth in “just” being a mom, listening to my body's natural rhythms, and learning to trust in the steady unfolding of life are not mine alone. We didn’t get here without some help.

And we can help each other create new narratives and stories that infuse our lives with grace, compassion, and gentleness.

One of the perspectives that’s been helpful for me is seeing this season of life as a time of maintenance. Embodying work that’s routine, repetitive, and necessary for the survival of our little one and the well-being of our family certainly doesn’t feel glamorous. The invisible, behind-the-scenes tasks, organization, and mental effort aren’t celebrated. It’s not something you high-five with friends over or send a fun text message about. It’s only in its absence that it gets noticed.

That energy and effort to maintain—ourselves, our loved ones, our community—has always felt substantial, true, visceral, and, yes, real to me. I don’t believe care work has to wreck us. This labor can be shared, social, collective—and transformative.

― Angela Garbes

I long to feel as positive and excited about this work as the author of Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change. I do believe this work is transformative and hope for the day it’s shared in community. The systems that separate, belittle, and devalue the work of creating and sustaining life are on their way out. I know this to be true because of the small, tender shifts I feel within me. The quiet but fierce inner knowing that another way is possible and I can choose to be part of deconstructing the old stories and writing new ones.

It’s still really, really hard.

The wobbly steps I take on new ground are part and parcel of where I am in my life but also where we are as a society and global community. We have never been here before. Old cycles are ending and new ones are beginning. We’re not supposed to be experts yet. We’re meant to experience and experiment with the changes, adapting and shaping our future the best way we know how.

There will be missteps and regressions, just like there are with new humans. We will fall. We will make mistakes, lose momentum, throw tantrums, and have meltdowns. It’s a messy time to be alive.²

Can we offer ourselves the same compassion and encouragement as the little ones learning to walk? Can we adjust our expectations of ourselves and each other? Is it possible to re-imagine what it truly means to be human as we enter an era focused even more on becoming machines?

I’m not sure. But I will be there next to you, toddling around, gaining strength and confidence a little bit at a time.

“A frozen groundswell just beyond our senses heaves and buckles, daring the world to dismantle these walls of enmity and use the stones to build ovens for baking bread. It would be the death of something, and the life of something. Somewhere there must be a door through.”

—Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder

All my love,
Mariah

Heartbeats is a community for artists, caregivers, and messy humans who believe in the power of generative storytelling. By financially contributing to Heartbeats you are saying yes to collaboration, connection, and creating sacred spaces where we can heal, learn, and honor each other with care. Thank you for your presence here. 💞

P.S. A note about this newsletter— you may have noticed less frequent and consistent output, even a failure to follow through on the monthly new moon letter (happy Saggitarius season!), publish promised podcasts, or continue the nature journaling workshops. Rather than apologizing for these gaps, I’m bravely calling attention to them as an example of what it looks like to push against cultural expectations to constantly produce and persist at all costs.

There is a cost and this is a time of reckoning.

It’s showing up for me in my motherhood, writing, and being, requiring a reorientation of energy, priorities, and rhythms I am still feeling my way through. Thank you for understanding, and for your love, support, and care. It means the world.

Go gently, loves. 💗

1. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this! Here’s an intro article to dive into.

2. I recently picked up Small Wonder, by Barbara Kingsolver, a series of essays written shortly after and in response to 9/11. I’ve only read the first essay so far but can already tell it’s as timeless as her other writing and a balm to my weary soul. Impromptu book club, anyone?