the return to a buried self

the following is from Amy King's interview with poet Arielle Greenberg; found here: http://vidaweb.org/gynocentric-anthems (it's annoying but i've never been able to figure out why the URL web paster thing on this blog doesn't work for me!). . .i guess i'm cut-n-pasting this here because of Greenberg's honesty, because of our lives, because of how much we all try to do and we can't do it all. we can't do it all. we're just livin'. . .and really what is it we want? what prize etc.? we want to have it all but we can't have it all. sorry! i'm thinking of the shock i felt when someone told me, "that's just what you want,you see. that's just a desire. you don't neccessarily get to have what you want. no, you don't get what you want."

and also really, maybe sometimes what we want isn't right, or is impossible. i think the dividness, the divided feeling, that's what i can't stand/ that's what drives me to anxiety, stress, unhappiness. when i'm divided in my minutes constantly, between mothering or creating, for one example. it's no good. really, i choose anything else, besides that dividness. yes. here's the thing:

AK: You have many proverbial irons in the fire: editing, teaching, writing, mothering, moderating, etc. Do you feel like you’re juggling too much sometimes? How do you get things done? What obstacles do you face and are you able to absorb or ignore them without feeling like you’re doing a disservice to your own work? What takes priority in relation to your assorted literary hats?

AG: Yes, I do feel like I’m juggling too much. Yes. All the time. Not sometimes: all the time. I cannot overstate how divided I feel, how much I wish I had more energy and time to devote to each aspect of my life, how hard I struggle with where and how to cut back, do less, be more present, simplify. This is the number one anxiety and reality for me these days. I could fill this interview with the banal details of this all-too-common struggle, which feels really charged and political and relevant to me despite its banality. (This very debate has been everywhere in the press lately, too: see the Boston Review’s July/August 2010 forum on feminism, work and family.) I feel like it’s important to say this very plainly and loudly here because I want to be honest with anyone reading this that, to resurrect an old Second Wave aphorism, I do not actually think it’s possible to “have it all.” I cannot figure out a way to be the mother I want to be, have the paying job I want to have, and do the unpaid creative and domestic and community work I want to do all at the same time with any modicum of serenity or contentment, nor do I see a way to combine these with the activism or friendships or other things that I desire. I try and fail; I keep trying and failing. I can’t see a way out.

Here comes the Too Much Information Department: I’ve been pregnant or breastfeeding for the last six years straight, which takes a huge emotional and physical toll. My youngest child turns one this Sunday, and it’s a fraught time for me spiritually. He is most likely my last baby and I am mourning the loss of that phase of my life, difficult as it is. At the same time, I’m sleep-deprived and still nursing and so hormonally, there are a lot of parts of myself that I haven’t been in touch with for a long time: my libido, my body, my dreamlife. And of course this has an impact on my relationship with my body, and with my partner, but I’ve realized what an enormous impact it also has on me as an artist: for example, without access to my dreams, I don’t think I can tap into my poetics. And I think my sex drive is related to my creative artistic drive: I’ve noticed that when my libido is awake, that’s when I get really interested in listening to music, seeing films, and all those things fuel my own creating. And of course there is just the reality of very little time to myself, very little time alone, very little time period. So mostly these days I feel like I am waiting for the return to a buried self I hope and pray is still within me somewhere. And yet, despite all this, I wish I could be an even more available, consistent, present mother than I am. I would not choose to mother less intensively, with more outside childcare or more time away from my children to write. That is not a choice that appeals to me.

So yes, I do feel like I’m doing an enormous disservice to my creative work. My family comes first, and then the obligations I do for pay (and though I am enormously fortunate to also care deeply about what I do for pay, that caring means more energy given away), and then the obligations I do for pleasure and fulfillment, and then, at the very very bottom, and often dropped entirely off the list, is my poetry. That’s the truth, Ruth.