Comments on: Bread and Roses http://www.oleoptene.com/2008/12/13/bread-and-roses/ A blog for Mara Collins Sun, 20 Nov 2011 04:12:17 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Oliver Jones http://www.oleoptene.com/2008/12/13/bread-and-roses/comment-page-1/#comment-42079 Oliver Jones Tue, 22 Jun 2010 06:14:11 +0000 http://www.oleoptene.com/?p=258#comment-42079 you can avoid kidney stones by drinking lots of liquid.'-. you can avoid kidney stones by drinking lots of liquid.’-.

]]> By: patrick http://www.oleoptene.com/2008/12/13/bread-and-roses/comment-page-1/#comment-4218 patrick Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:33:55 +0000 http://www.oleoptene.com/?p=258#comment-4218 I am sure this post must speak to any artist who has had to balance life and making art. I keep thinking the last sentence of your post, a "struggle that leaves me feeling divided against myself" because it is so real. Unless you are Gauguin and wander off into the world and forsake family and the desire to maintain some semblance of order and reason in your life, the dishes will still have to get done, the diapers changed, the bills paid. My earlier comment was aimed at the way the these two different parts of our lives have the meanest way of intruding themselves on one another, and that we should embrace each rather than let them try to destroy the other, but as I think more about this I began to realize that I am in fact, more Jeckel/Hyde about art and life and that I do almost everything I can to keep them as far apart from one another as possible, (one wife, one mistress perhaps?) That the moments for my insanity come not in being overwhelmed by children or a love of cadmium red, but that when I HAVE TO get that cadmium red out of the tube right NOW! and the babies diaper hasn't been changed there is a bit of a coin toss as to whether child or canvas will win. Fortunately for me, I have a very understanding and loving wife who supports the red. I am sure this post must speak to any artist who has had to balance life and making art. I keep thinking the last sentence of your post, a “struggle that leaves me feeling divided against myself” because it is so real. Unless you are Gauguin and wander off into the world and forsake family and the desire to maintain some semblance of order and reason in your life, the dishes will still have to get done, the diapers changed, the bills paid. My earlier comment was aimed at the way the these two different parts of our lives have the meanest way of intruding themselves on one another, and that we should embrace each rather than let them try to destroy the other, but as I think more about this I began to realize that I am in fact, more Jeckel/Hyde about art and life and that I do almost everything I can to keep them as far apart from one another as possible, (one wife, one mistress perhaps?) That the moments for my insanity come not in being overwhelmed by children or a love of cadmium red, but that when I HAVE TO get that cadmium red out of the tube right NOW! and the babies diaper hasn’t been changed there is a bit of a coin toss as to whether child or canvas will win. Fortunately for me, I have a very understanding and loving wife who supports the red.

]]> By: Mara Collins http://www.oleoptene.com/2008/12/13/bread-and-roses/comment-page-1/#comment-4206 Mara Collins Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:49:53 +0000 http://www.oleoptene.com/?p=258#comment-4206 And my response: I feel slightly guilty now for not participating more in the discussion there, because I love it, I just sit back in quiet awe. Because maybe this is all I ever blog about: how do I attend to the infants visceral and ephemeral and remain true to both, to self. And Flaubert's mother may sit in my head (or sleep next to me) angry when I do choose the word babies over the flesh babies, accusing me of self-indulgence, and maybe among the muscles I've been working to develop in the practices of morning pages and blog is the one to sit her down and say, "look, old lady, shut up, my heart is mine to feed and grow as I must, and sometimes the love of the sentence is what gives me the strength to wash another sinkful of dishes. My love for my second child didn't diminish my love for my first, but you all must learn to sometimes allow for me not to attend to your needs the moment you voice them." And my response:

I feel slightly guilty now for not participating more in the discussion there, because I love it, I just sit back in quiet awe. Because maybe this is all I ever blog about: how do I attend to the infants visceral and ephemeral and remain true to both, to self. And Flaubert’s mother may sit in my head (or sleep next to me) angry when I do choose the word babies over the flesh babies, accusing me of self-indulgence, and maybe among the muscles I’ve been working to develop in the practices of morning pages and blog is the one to sit her down and say, “look, old lady, shut up, my heart is mine to feed and grow as I must, and sometimes the love of the sentence is what gives me the strength to wash another sinkful of dishes. My love for my second child didn’t diminish my love for my first, but you all must learn to sometimes allow for me not to attend to your needs the moment you voice them.”

]]> By: Mara Collins http://www.oleoptene.com/2008/12/13/bread-and-roses/comment-page-1/#comment-4205 Mara Collins Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:48:00 +0000 http://www.oleoptene.com/?p=258#comment-4205 for the unreliable narrator since the blog is being funny with comments "I am admittedly way too stroppy about this, because nursing manufactured beauty in the face of history's indifference to its existence is what I do. I suspect Patrick and I are agreeing whilst using different language to describe our apparent disagreement (since that's all a dispute ever is anyway). But Mara, please feel free to kick us off. :o) "Women writers haven't enjoyed the luxury of finding "balance" in the same way that Flaubert might have (or anyway his mother thought he should). Infants visceral and ephemeral demand attention and we decide again and again where to give it—not as zero-sum game, right, but as process, as continual redress, correcting imbalances even as we create new ones. We all do this, whether we write or breathe—we all exist in flux every time we decide to be alone for a time or be with our families. It moves. "So that's why I think Flaubert's mum was being petulant and/or boneheaded, at least in that report of her. Service is not subtractive but additional. This goes whether we serve language or progeny, or both, our hope in both cases: to be survived. And I do not think that pouring your soul into either or both or neither, would make anyone mean-spirited or poor of heart. "I think he probably just forgot her birthday." for the unreliable narrator since the blog is being funny with comments

“I am admittedly way too stroppy about this, because nursing manufactured beauty in the face of history’s indifference to its existence is what I do. I suspect Patrick and I are agreeing whilst using different language to describe our apparent disagreement (since that’s all a dispute ever is anyway). But Mara, please feel free to kick us off. :o )

“Women writers haven’t enjoyed the luxury of finding “balance” in the same way that Flaubert might have (or anyway his mother thought he should). Infants visceral and ephemeral demand attention and we decide again and again where to give it—not as zero-sum game, right, but as process, as continual redress, correcting imbalances even as we create new ones. We all do this, whether we write or breathe—we all exist in flux every time we decide to be alone for a time or be with our families. It moves.

“So that’s why I think Flaubert’s mum was being petulant and/or boneheaded, at least in that report of her. Service is not subtractive but additional. This goes whether we serve language or progeny, or both, our hope in both cases: to be survived. And I do not think that pouring your soul into either or both or neither, would make anyone mean-spirited or poor of heart.

“I think he probably just forgot her birthday.”

]]> By: unreliable narrator http://www.oleoptene.com/2008/12/13/bread-and-roses/comment-page-1/#comment-4203 unreliable narrator Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:37:32 +0000 http://www.oleoptene.com/?p=258#comment-4203 "The only way out is through." (Frost) The middle path is for life, not literature. (And not for hijacking commenters on Mara's blog. ;o) Sentences are preliterate and pagan in their imperative to be. Like infants, who also know no middle way. “The only way out is through.” (Frost) The middle path is for life, not literature. (And not for hijacking commenters on Mara’s blog. ;o)

Sentences are preliterate and pagan in their imperative to be. Like infants, who also know no middle way.

]]> By: patrick http://www.oleoptene.com/2008/12/13/bread-and-roses/comment-page-1/#comment-4202 patrick Mon, 15 Dec 2008 18:38:07 +0000 http://www.oleoptene.com/?p=258#comment-4202 middle path! middle path! middle path! middle path!

]]> By: unreliable narrator http://www.oleoptene.com/2008/12/13/bread-and-roses/comment-page-1/#comment-4201 unreliable narrator Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:56:04 +0000 http://www.oleoptene.com/?p=258#comment-4201 (But then I am barren, and so perhaps wizened in more ways than one.) (But then I am barren, and so perhaps wizened in more ways than one.)

]]> By: unreliable narrator http://www.oleoptene.com/2008/12/13/bread-and-roses/comment-page-1/#comment-4200 unreliable narrator Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:55:34 +0000 http://www.oleoptene.com/?p=258#comment-4200 I do not think the love of sentences can dry up a heart. Quite the opposite. Perhaps his mother was too delicate to say, his incessant self-regard. We have no more of her sentences, so do not know. It comes only in allowing ourselves to be consumed. Just my deux centimes. I do not think the love of sentences can dry up a heart. Quite the opposite. Perhaps his mother was too delicate to say, his incessant self-regard. We have no more of her sentences, so do not know.

It comes only in allowing ourselves to be consumed. Just my deux centimes.

]]> By: patrick http://www.oleoptene.com/2008/12/13/bread-and-roses/comment-page-1/#comment-4193 patrick Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:25:45 +0000 http://www.oleoptene.com/?p=258#comment-4193 "it helps to think that I am not the first to struggle to balance the domestic details and the need for meaning and beauty, a struggle that leaves me feeling divided against myself." Flaubert comes to mind. A consummate wordsmith, Flaubert's mother criticized him that his love for sentences had dried up his heart. Honestly, meaning and beauty are important, but they can be all consuming, embrace the division. “it helps to think that I am not the first to struggle to balance the domestic details and the need for meaning and beauty, a struggle that leaves me feeling divided against myself.”

Flaubert comes to mind. A consummate wordsmith, Flaubert’s mother criticized him that his love for sentences had dried up his heart. Honestly, meaning and beauty are important, but they can be all consuming, embrace the division.

]]> By: karen http://www.oleoptene.com/2008/12/13/bread-and-roses/comment-page-1/#comment-4187 karen Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:23:22 +0000 http://www.oleoptene.com/?p=258#comment-4187 OMG, paragraphs 3 & 4 largely comprise the meta-non-blogging I mentioned to you im message the other day, but said far better than I would have said/did say it. Thank you for that. Now I don't have to explain it, because i can just say to you, "That's what i meant." It also largely explains why I am so gol-darned wordy. I also know about the KNOWING not to compare, yet somehow doing it anyway, and how it's never a good result. Sometimes I just come back to, "Maybe I *should* be able to do XYZ better/more efficiently/better dressed-&-accessorized/fill in the blank, but it is what it is." For some reason, I feel let off the hook with that semblance of self-acceptance or tee-niney grain of lovingkindness toward myself. But sometimes that is far harder when you are exposed to people with 4 kids and manage to, oh, write fucking NOVELS IN ONE FUCKING MONTH or MAKE FUCKING DESIGNER MOTHER FUCKING TRUFFLES AND ORNAMENTS AND CHARMS and still COOK without needing to make regular and large-sum deposits to even ONE child's Savings for Therapy Fund!!! (Yes, there were MULTIPLE exclamation points there and LOTS OF CAPS, TOO! Because I AM.... The Unblogger. Oh, and I just saw the last line of the comment above mine, which I reiterate: There is nothing wrong with you. And if there is, then were are all pretty screwed anyway, so then it doesn't really matter, huh? OMG, paragraphs 3 & 4 largely comprise the meta-non-blogging I mentioned to you im message the other day, but said far better than I would have said/did say it. Thank you for that. Now I don’t have to explain it, because i can just say to you, “That’s what i meant.” It also largely explains why I am so gol-darned wordy.

I also know about the KNOWING not to compare, yet somehow doing it anyway, and how it’s never a good result. Sometimes I just come back to, “Maybe I *should* be able to do XYZ better/more efficiently/better dressed-&-accessorized/fill in the blank, but it is what it is.” For some reason, I feel let off the hook with that semblance of self-acceptance or tee-niney grain of lovingkindness toward myself. But sometimes that is far harder when you are exposed to people with 4 kids and manage to, oh, write fucking NOVELS IN ONE FUCKING MONTH or MAKE FUCKING DESIGNER MOTHER FUCKING TRUFFLES AND ORNAMENTS AND CHARMS and still COOK without needing to make regular and large-sum deposits to even ONE child’s Savings for Therapy Fund!!! (Yes, there were MULTIPLE exclamation points there and LOTS OF CAPS, TOO! Because I AM…. The Unblogger.

Oh, and I just saw the last line of the comment above mine, which I reiterate: There is nothing wrong with you. And if there is, then were are all pretty screwed anyway, so then it doesn’t really matter, huh?

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