Yesterday afternoon I found a cozy corner, brewed a cup of tea, and settled in for some “productive writing”. The computer screen radiated light drawing my attention to it like a moth to a candle. My mind delightfully flitted from humorous anecdotes in Bombeck’s writing, to the diarist’s relaxed parenting in Diary of A Provincial Lady and then into the reality of a mother just hanging on hoping the ups and downs that have hit her oldest child’s life don’t leave a mark, in Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing”.
So I set out to write this Thursday Reflection yesterday, on Thursday (I know - novel idea!). Writing about women authors who wrote about motherhood heavily appealed to my intellectual mind and was very much fitting with the remnants of Mother’s Day celebrations still scattered around the house.
To say that Bombeck’s humor got me through the beginning years of being a mother and wife would be a slight to her real gift of capturing the absurdity that is parenting.
“This isn’t a book. It’s a group therapy session. It is based on six predictable depression cycles that beset a woman during a twelve-month span. These chapters will not tell you how to overcome these depression cycles. They will not tell you how to cope with them. They will hit home if they, in some small way, help you to laugh your way through while hanging on to your sweet sanity.”
- Preface to “At Wit’s End” - Erma Bombeck, 1967
Mother’s Little Helpers, John Falter, April 18, 1953, The Saturday Evening Post
Though I have followed my own compass as a parent over the past, almost couple, decades and relished the social freedoms the mother in Delafield’s Diary of a Provincial Lady strives to partake and semi-successfully achieves, that too is insufficient to shine a light on the progressive parenting demonstrated in Delafield’s writing over her career.
“A child with an intense capacity for feeling can suffer to a degree that is beyond any degree of adult suffering, because imagination, ignorance, and the conviction of utter helplessness are untempered either by reason or by experience.”
- from “Humbug” - E. M. Delafield, 1922
Margaret Keane, The First Grail, 1962
And then there is Tillie Olsen - I’m embarrassed to say that I was unaware of this author until last week. Perhaps her short story, “I Stand Here Ironing” is the work that has most affected me. But again, to merely say that is a disservice to a writer who so perfectly captures the emotional and tactical realities of being a mother in a world that doesn’t adhere to your own idealized intentions and sees your child as just another kid.
“Let her be. So all that is in her will not bloom—but in how many does it? There is still enough left to live by. Only help her to know—that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron.”
- from “I Stand Here Ironing” - Tillie Olsen, originally published as “Help Her to Believe” in 1957.
The words on the screen sang praises, but there was something still to be written. I felt fresh eyes would bring new insights, so I closed my laptop, and waited for clarity that a good-night sleep could provide.
I awoke to a busy schedule and hours to reflect on these women and their works and what was once cloudy and distant became clear and in focus as today progressed:
Like motherhood, perhaps there is an inexpressible quality to the contribution these women authors have made to the world and the psyche of mothers everywhere.
I cherish the camaraderie I feel reading their works, the ability to “feel seen” by their anecdotes and pointedly crafted scenes of motherhood, but perhaps I am not the woman to reveal the secrets and treasures of these writers, if they should be revealed at all.
There is a sanctity to motherhood that deserves preservation, and while these writers may divulge some aspects of the maternal world, any mother reading them will know that while the author revealed much, it is not all left on the page. The rest remains in the heart and experience of the mother reading.
Today is Friday and I have finally finished this Thursday Reflection. I may have found some words, but I now know those words not found are not meant to be on the page.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this week’s Thursday Reflection (even if it is Friday!). If anyone has an author or work they have found nurturing of their mothering soul, please do share!
Brittany