The grand permission - the second adolescence of becoming a mother. Let's just say the last two and a half years of my life have been a transition. Being a writer and a mother is amazing and daunting at the same time. Being a writer, a mother and pursueing a Ph.D. at the sametime is insane and it is here that I will be venting that stress/anxiety/etc. (I say this as my littlest one is wailing in my arms) Ahh...the quiet writers life.

When I was twenty-four I went up to Vermont to a writers retreat to finish up my thesis. I was living in New York at the time and just that transition from city noise, to the deafening quiet of solitude was intense. But the cabin I lived in for one week was one of seven on a wooded hill. Every day, madened by my solitude, I'd venture out and meet a new woman in her own seperate cabin. Each had a story.

The first, was in her forties, with hennaed hair. She was sitting by a blazing fire when I walked in and the air was soft with frech love songs. When I asked why she was there she said she just need a break from her kids and her husband. I couldn't understand it at the time. (I had nothing but time to myself to write -- in fact my life was swollen with it) But now, as I sit here years later trying to write in between nursing and groceries and cleaning and laundry and did I brush my teeth today? I get it.