I woke up with Marcel on my left and Sam on my right. Perhaps that is what started it all… My dear friend S offered to me sometime ago that balance was a myth. Maybe so, but damn well ingrained over here. What are you balancing today? Good thing I ran out of room huh? No pun intended…
Catherine –
What a treat! I absolutely loved the graphic that said it all, or enough of it to tell the story or a working mother-writer’s life, so well.
I lalso loved the image of Marcel and Sam in your arms; balanced in distribution, maybe, but not in weight, or need, and yet you only have two hands with which to attend to them.
Lesia
Thanks Mama! It was so sweet how I saw myself as the physical balance, and one on each side… Great to hear from you. I wish I could call myself the working mother-writer. I suppose I am. We are!
Hi Mama C,
I am fighting for balance too, so much so that I just hired my career coach back. If it’s this hard to get balance, is it not like Sisyphus pushing up the stone? Maybe it’s all about the journey … seeking not actually achieving? I dunno!
Or maybe like a crew boat (I was a coxswain once), the more balanced the faster you go, but it’s an ever constant dance of adjustments.
I am now trying to carve out “white space.” That’s my new mantra!
Carve out white space–LOVE THAT. And Sisyphus–YES–agreed. (My brother taught the boys how to say Sisyphean the other day–how great to have a context for it :). Career coach–another great idea. You always add so much to the conversation.
I love this. Your drawing depicts it all perfectly….the story of so many working supermamas that makes balance a journey to the possibly quite impossible destination of balance. choosing one side always does seem to throw the other one out of whack, doesn’t it? thanks for sharing this–it makes me smile and laugh at the insanity of all the things we try to balance simultaneously.
Yes–the out of whack part. I never remember that one to one correlation!
Speaking of balance, tonight Jupiter informed me that I never have time to play with her because I am always working. Either at work, or at home. Or, watering the plants. Apparently she does not like competing with plants. Fortunately the cat is in the process of eating one of the plants as I type this. Apparently my life is not in balance right now.
They have a way don’t they… of speaking the truth. It’s so great when we can hear them isn’t it? Or when we can eat the plants…