Artistic Identity

No matter how busy motherhood gets, I can’t imagine giving up my creative activities. I just read an article by a woman who did exactly that. She was a blogger and photographer, and she did no work for two years while she took care of her children. She said that she needed to be more present with them. She’s not the only one I have heard of who has done that. I have friends who have done that as well.

I admire the self-sacrifice and self-control, but I can’t really imagine doing that myself. Maybe it’s good that I have to stop at one child, as much as I wanted to have more. But if I had 10 kids I have a feeling I would still be squeezing in time to write poems or to paint. That maybe I would be in a situation at that point where I shouldn’t be doing those things, but I would do them anyway.

Poetry is such a part of me that I can’t imagine giving it up. I go through spells where I primarily read poetry rather than write it. When I do that I am often soaking up inspiration and gearing up for a period of intense writing. But to simply not have poetry in my life? I can’t even imagine.

Painting and photography have become primal urges for me. I can’t imagine putting my camera down as some of the mother photographers do. I might sometimes get lazy or too busy to take out my expensive camera, but I’ll at the very least be taking photos on my phone.

Perhaps all of this is selfish or self-absorbed, but I’m not so sure about that. Everyone needs their own identity. Everyone needs something that they love to do and an opportunity to do it. Naturally your husband and children have to take priority, but you can’t draw from an empty well. If you want to give them more, then you have to give yourself something. So many women say they’ve lost their identity in motherhood, and I just can’t relate. When I had my daughter I became even more myself. I still had all the artistic aspects of myself, all the general personality traits like introversion, I still liked the same foods and movies, only I was finally fully tapped into my maternal potential. Having a child didn’t sap my sense of identity. It completed it.

Not that I think I am really at risk of this, but I pray that I never put down the pen or the camera or the brush. These things are apart of me. Without them I think I would fall to pieces.

From One to Another

Small as a pond,

You are bordered by mossy velvet.

You act like me.

Rivers do not

associate with women.

First I was a fish.

Then I was provided with womanhood.

The oars on the canoe

Love one another in Morse code.

I’ll walk under the hollow water.

My understanding of

beauty and all that you can do

flourishes like kelp,

always below the surface.

Undeserved Blessings

God is good, and I am grateful.

Thinking about my life, I realize how fortunate I am. I have done nothing to merit my great marriage, sweet daughter, lovely home, or artistic life. God has blessed me beyond measure.

This is what God does. He gifts us beautiful things. He holds our hands when things get difficult, and he showers us with blessings. We wade through the rain, but one way or another we are given a rainbow.

As a sinner, I deserve condemnation. Yet God has extended His hand to me. Through His Son, He has given me the gift of eternal life.

Sometimes I need to be still and count the precious blessings I have received from the Lord.

“Be still and know that I am God.”

Headcovering as an Offering to God

Headcovering can be controversial. In my family I have come across the stigma against submission, and the contemporary horror of headcovering. A woman covering anything is becoming more and more controversial in an age where women are supposed to be liberated by the ability to bare their flesh without shame. Maybe the baring of flesh makes some women feel liberated, but I feel liberated when I can cover. My husband, although he shows me every day that he thinks I’m beautiful, values me for so much more than my breasts or my legs. I have no desire to draw attention from other men.

Lately I have begun to wear simple, long, flowing maxi dresses. Craig loves maxi dresses, and I like to wear things he likes. I also like how comfortable the dresses are, and that they are modest. I am not against dressing a little sexier maybe for a special event, but for daily life I actually like being covered.