What I can remember reading
August 25th, 2004
and nurse at the same time and it’s safer than cooking and
nursing…
pregnant I couldn’t stand reading anything about mothering or midwifery.
Actually, I do have an explanation — I needed to experience my own experience
sort of unmediated by what I was reading, to not be an expert on everything
happening to me because just being the mother is responsibility enough, and a
lot of reading was just pure escape. I had a stack of books on the art of
writing, a couple on new urbanism (recommend highly Suburban Nation)
which makes me feel like living in a small, older house in a small, tree-filled
neighborhood is somehow a moral virtue and not just an aesthetic thing. I
read everything I could by Connie Willis and fell into a lot of fun feminist
science fiction, starting with Sherry Tepper’s stuff. I read Douglas Coupland’s
Hey Nostradamus because I will loyally read anything he writes and I like
it better than anything since
Microserfs.
After Rainer was
born, I found myself craving memoirs, so I read the oral history of a granny
midwife in Alabama, Motherwit, by Onnie Lee Logan, and The Liars’
Club by Mary Karr, which reassured me that I am not the worst mother ever
even if I sometimes feel inadequate to the toddler and baby crying at the same
time, and hey, if I am, at least my children will grow up to write interesting
memoirs. For pure escapism I just finished Iain Pears’ An Instance of the
Fingerpost. Now I’ve started The Bastard on the Couch, where 27 men
give views and feelings on the changing roles of men — a sequel to The Bitch
in the House, which was similar essays by women. I’ve read a lot of stuff
by women on how they feel about marriage and children (not to mention
conversations with friends and reflecting on what the heck I’m doing) and was
really curious about the male perspective. And to balance some of the
bitterness and frustration I’m reading Steve Ross’ Happy Yoga, which, from what
I’ve read, does a fine job of balancing the relative simplicity of real
happiness with not having a simplistic world-view, plus it has nice little tips
on diet and postures.
