The Chrysalis; Giving In

I gave in.

I struggled against the tides and tried to write, tried to resume the life I had, while juggling the mothering of a newborn. I hired a nanny. The nanny didn’t work out. I fired the nanny. I was left by myself, which was kind of better than having a nanny-that-wasn’t-working-out.

I was trying to write. Trying to compartmentalize the fact that I was now a mother. Ignoring it, in order to write, and resume my former identity. Struggling to make elaborate meals (never happened), when slapping some cream cheese on a bagel (un-toasted) was the best I could do. Maybe this is what people mean when they say “trying to have it all.”

It was like swimming upstream. And in the end, I hadn’t made much progress. I didn’t get any further upstream. I think I ended up downstream anyway. Didn’t get any writing done. Didn’t get any reading done. For all the sacrifice–for all my exertion and for all the time I didn’t spend connecting with my daughter, I was left unfulfilled and exhausted. So I decided to go with the flow. Follow the water. Let my life lead me.

Frankly speaking, I was too exhausted to do otherwise. I was beaten into submission. I looked at my daughter and whispered, “P, you got me beat. We’re just going to do it your way.”

This resulted in many many days in which I sat in bed with my kid, napping when she did, alternating between feeding, diapering, burping, pumping, and then napping with her when I could. Some days, that is pretty much what I did all damn day. All day. All night. Just that. Maybe get up and load the dishwasher full of bottles or do a load of laundry. Watch a TV show. But pretty much, just that. Especially when my husband was out of town on business trips.

(And why am I writing this in past tense? Because this is what I’m doing everyday, even now). My biggest thing last week was ordering a rice cooker online, because I was so desperate for hot food and I couldn’t track a stove with a baby. And deal with being chastised for clogging up the holes in the burners with boiled-over-rice-paste-water. I was So Excited about this rice cooker. I tracked its progression on UPS, salivating as it neared. I tweeted about The New Rice Cooker. One of my best friends emailed me, worried about what he perceived was increasing desperation. No, I told him, I’m okay. Just Really Excited about a Rice Cooker, because you see–my life has condensed down to a rice cooker. I’m not unhappy! I told him. Just! A little! Crazy! About a rice! Cooker! Hot! Food! Ohdear, I told him. I may be a little crazy.

I did worry about my writing. About returning to my novel revision. I dreamt about making a meal from scratch. And I fretted about who I’d become–just some clichéd stay-at-home-mom with unwashed hair, making no contributions to society, obsessing about breast milk. But that’s kind of like letting the river carry you and straining your neck to look at the river bank from which you originated. So I forced myself to just be, again. I stared at my baby. I smiled at her. I had conversations comprised of back and forth cooing (what was I saying? I had no idea, but my baby seemed pleased). I gave in. I forgot what day of the week it was.

I haven’t given up. I’ve given in. I acknowledge the different journey, the new journey, under my body. I acknowledge that I have no map for this new place. And I basically say, “Fuck it.” I am going to give up control and just explore without agenda and without an end.

Good things happen when I say, “Fuck it.” Excellent things happen, actually. But I’ve never done it simultaneously with giving in.

Giving in made things a lot more peaceful; to just be with my kid, make my mind a blank slate, and see what would happen. In short, go with the ease. Nothing kind of happened. Everything kind of happened. My life became little milestones comprised of minutiae–feedings, diapers, burps, naps. Picking out her outfits. Shopping online. Looking out the windows. Putting the baby in the sling and getting the mail. Maybe walking up and down my block. And yet these little things are kind of huge.

And–little surprises from the outside world are coming to me. An email from a former student, thanking me for inspiring her. (Which of course in turn, inspired me). And my writing community came to me, threw me opportunities. My friends sending me galleys of their new books (holding a book in my hands makes me feel human again). The world had not forgotten me. I should not forget me. I was able to sequester a little bit of energy. I started to read in snippets. I wrote this blog post while the baby napped (and she woke up right as I finished writing this post, as if this post were meant to be).

It’s my time in a chrysalis. As a writer. As a human being.

Making the most of my time in the chrysalis. By giving into it.

VONA Seed Our Success

VONA has been the best thing I’ve ever done for myself as a writer, for my writing, as a writer of color. I’ve honed my craft and my voice at VONA. I’ve met the best and most encouraging and genius mentors (Junot Díaz, Mat Johnson, Chris Abani, etc., all of whom have been formative to my work) at VONA.

I’ve found a community at VONA that stands with me everyday as a human and a writer.

If you believe in me as a writer, you believe in VONA

For five out of the past seven years, I have attended VONA workshops. I have attended when I felt tentative, and when I felt strong. It was the place to which I returned when 18 months after my stroke, I felt able to write fiction again, and wanted a safe place in which to revisit my writing. It is my writing touchstone, and I want it to continue to exist and grow as a touchstone for other writers of color.

I’ve finished a novel manuscript over the course of my time with VONA. I’ve published stories and essays over the course of my time with VONA. I nailed down my voice as a writer over the course of my time with VONA. I owe so much.

And this is not to say you owe; maybe you do, as a reader of works by writers of color or as a VONA alum (many of whom have moved onto great critical success and whose works have landed on such things like the NY Times Notable 100 Books lists). But even if you do not fall into these categories, I ask you to INVEST.

There is a fundraiser under way to keep the program and workshops robust–and to that end, to bring in more voices from the unknown places and diversify literature. I owe so much to VONA as a writer, and that is why I gave the healthiest donation I could muster this year. And I’m asking my friends with love for literature and the arts, writers and readers, to do the same.

We are constantly asked to give money these days, especially since funding has been cut from so many programs–but if you’re considering a monetary donation to one arts group, I ask that this be it. Your money will go directly to the program and to the writers they support.

Please give. You can either make a donation to VONA or buy tickets to the fundraiser, held at Uptown Body & Fender on Sunday June 30, 2013. The VIP reception, at which you can meet with Distinguished Writers) is from 3:00-4:30pm, and the main event (food, readings, auctions), is from 4:30-6:00pm.

Golem Update

It’s a beautiful day to be a golem in NYC.

Quick blog post, April 2013

Lately, any writing I do is comprised of texting on twitter, in bursts of 140 characters, about all I can handle in terms of writing output. So if you want updates from me, follow @czilka on twitter.

It now  feels weird to write in paragraphs. I felt anxiety  after the first sentence (which incidentally was 140 characters long–has it become reflex now?) of this blog post–what to write next? This sure feels really long. Oh now it feels awkward. Huh.

This is all to say, “I haven’t blogged in awhile.”

Because I haven’t blogged in awhile–thought I’d do a “quick blog post” as an update.*

It’s interesting to note that in the past few months, my relationship with time has completely and utterly changed. As have my relationship with my body and the concept of achievement. My day is comprised of repetitive tasks like feeding, burping, and diapering my daughter. And pumping breast milk. And putting my kid to sleep. Only to look up and discover that two hours have gone by. And that in an hour, I’ll be feeding, burping, and diapering my daughter again. Time is no longer measured in larger units or through the lens of a longterm project like novel revision. My body is a food factory. And achievements are things like watching my kid discover consonant sounds and watching her grab her foot for the first time. Not a big deal in the literal sense, but I’ve learned that achievement is about perception. It’s a big deal to my kid, so it’s a big deal to me. And you should see my kid smile and laugh when you stand her up. It’s a Huge Deal.

Plus honestly, if I were to measure achievements in the literal sense, I’d be so depressed, because I’d have nothing to show for all this work.

So, my life has shrunk down to these moments, or these strings of moments. After I had my stroke, I lost my short-term memory, so my life shrunk down to only the present tense. There was immense insight gained from that period. And it ended up bolstering my writing. I’m hoping for the same, here.

It’s only in recent days that I’ve really truly fallen in love with my kid, and clung to her with an obsession resembling the biggest teenage crush ever (you know, the kind where you follow the object of your affection around school, try to arrange your class schedule around theirs, drive by their house at random times…). So glad the tides have turned, because doing all this work out of responsibility and duty and obligation is soul sucking–doing it out of love feels way better. It’s hard for me to let her go, now.

So I’m just coasting in the moment. I tried fighting all of this–I tried sacrificing my naps to write and I grieved my previous identity, and ended up miserable and very exhausted. So I’m going with it, learning things as I go. Especially since this is a journey I’ve wanted for some time.

*I started writing this blog post 12 days ago. I almost gave up on finishing this blog post. But decided to forge ahead, anyway. Because then I’d never get a blog post up, ever.

Read/Reading:
NOTHING! Okay, a chapter of Nova Ren Suma’s 17 & GONE. A bunch of baby books. (baby sign language, the Baby Book by Dr. Sears, wonder weeks, blah blah blah). There is a pile of neglected New Yorkers giving me the side eye. If I’m lucky, Vogue magazine while sitting on the can, but really, I don’t even have time to sit on the can when there is a baby that might start wailing any second for attention or because her binky has fallen out of her mouth and she can’t pick it up because her arms don’t go where she wants them to go just yet and oh my G*d someone put the binky in her mouth right the f*ck now! Yah.

Wrote/Writing:
NOTHING!
Okay. Tweets.

And I’ve given myself permission to not have to write anything fiction until Fall. Just to be gentle on myself. I’ve got essay ideas swimming in my head, but no energy to write them down.

In any case, I won’t be writing until I can read fiction again.

Viewed:
Thank goodness for the fact that there remains the gift of observation.

• My baby laughing. Cooing.
• Django Unchained. Watched in small increments of time, but still.
• Mad Men
• Cherry blossom petals blowing in the wind. About as beautiful as all the cherry blossoms throughout NYC and at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. I’m lucky that I get to experience Spring all over again in NYC, a couple months after Spring commenced in Berkeley.
• Lots of bottles of breast milk.

Memorable eats/Culinary outings:

• McDonald’s.
• Wendy’s.
• Discovering food delivery services like Three Stone Hearth, Good Eggs, and Shira’s Kitchen in Berkeley.
• Our first dinner out with baby at a neighborhood Chinese restaurant–speed-eating so we could get the baby home.
• Leaving the baby with a favorite doula and going to EMP!

Cooked:

• Okay. I boil pasta. It makes me sad. I am such a cook. It is one of my decompression activities. Once, during my 3rd week postpartum, while someone took care of my baby, I baked a coffee cake. Because I was desperate to cook. That is about it.
• Thawing all the things I cooked, pre-baby, from the freezer.
• Okay. I just remembered: I cooked Passover Seder dinner. I made chicken matzo ball soup, brisket, stuffed cabbage rolls, chicken liver salad. And then I slept for days afterward.

Happenings:

I GAVE BIRTH.

Never happened:

Sleep.

Kartika Review Spring Issue 15 is live

The new Spring 2013 issue of Kartika Review is live! As the Fiction Editor, I’m particularly proud of the pieces by Wah-Ming Chang, Kaitlin Solimine, Anu Kandikuppa, and Sharon Hashimoto–though I’d like to also give a wink to my friend Jackson Bliss whose work is featured in the Creative Nonfiction section. And don’t miss our interview with the amazing Monique Truong.

Yoga and Infertility

(the ceiling at Strala Yoga; one of my favorite views)

It took me thirteen years to get pregnant. I don’t talk a lot about my infertility, because somewhere during those thirteen years, I decided to not let it define me or my life. I didn’t want to sit around at home pining for a child while allowing other opportunities to slip away. And I certainly didn’t want to be seen that way by the world; I didn’t want to be known for what I did not have–I wanted to be known for what I could do and what I’d done.

I mean, there were plenty of days in there where I would draw the curtains in my bedroom, crawl into my bed, and cry for hours on end, grieving a life I didn’t have. I would be very happy for my pregnant friends, but found baby showers unbearable, so I stopped going. And I’d be very happy for my pregnant friends, but simultaneously found their round pregnant bellies torturous. But for the most part, I kept my grief very private, for better and for worse, to the point where some people were very surprised to learn I wanted children.

We bought our home in Berkeley with the intention of having children, many children. Over the years, the extra bedrooms became guest rooms and and an office. Still, the aura of empty bedrooms never escaped me.

In some fit of optimism, I decided early on that the first child I’d hold in my arms was going to be my own, so for many many years I politely declined holding people’s babies. Eventually, I wondered if I should go ahead and hold a baby, because maybe I’d never get to hold my own. But by then, very few people offered up their babies to me. And the significance of the act had become quite large–whose baby? And what would that act signify? Would that mean I’d totally given up? And uh, yah. Awkward.

Yah, it got complicated.

At one point, I picked up my head and made a concerted effort to “do what people with kids cannot do.” That meant that when we were asked to move to New York City, we immediately (okay not immediately, but twenty-four hours later) said yes, we would. (Plus hello? New York!) We picked up and moved within two months, wending our way across the country (through a blizzard in Arizona!) in a MINI Cooper with two geriatric wiener dogs in the back. We lived a bicoastal life. We flew back and forth. These were things that people with kids could not do.

And then–we got pregnant.

I wrote a little essay late in my pregnancy on my infertility and its intersection with yoga for my friend and yoga instructor, Tara Stiles. I met her completely by chance at her yoga studio Strala Yoga. Yoga with Tara changed my life. Tara read this essay at a conference on infertility (Fertility Planit) at which she was a keynote speaker.

If you want to hear it, Tara’s presentation is up at MindBodyGreen; she begins reading my essay at the 24:30 mark.

And here is my essay if you would prefer to read it:

A few new things out there

(Spring is making an appearance in Berkeley).

I’ve a few pieces out in the world in recent days.

• My essay on Scarlet has found a wonderful home at Newport Review. Much thanks to Kathryn Kulpa for reaching out to me after spotting the essay, which was initially an exercise in grief more than a piece intended for publication. Writing the piece helped me feel better about Scarlet, and I am really happy it found a home out in the world.
• And this morning, I’ve a piece on a pick-up line up at Sundog Lit. I’ve had my fair share of bad pick-up lines (e.g., “Can I talk to you about my cancer?” and “I don’t care if you’re married–can I buy you a drink?”), so it was hard to choose just one. But I did. And in doing so, I wrote about something I rarely talk about in public: having my engagement broken off. (We got back together a year later, by the way, and we’ve been happy ever since). All the Men I Loved was inspired by and written in support of my friend Matthew Salesses‘ forthcoming book, I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying. All the pick up lines by all the contributing writers are compiled here. Also, delighted to say my piece is out alongside my friend Mary Kim Arnold’s pick-up line piece for Matt. She has a great blog, if you’re looking for another to add to your reading.

Hope you like and enjoy them.