Hello friend,
I was starting my letters from the Spring with “Dear reader” but after a perusal of my subscriber list, I know most of you personally, & you are my friend. Some of us share high school memories, college, some of you from design ventures, some of you my mother’s friends or family who have been so wonderful to me, and some of you a bit more new to me as gals who married the guys that are my husband’s childhood friends.
The overlap is that many of us are mothers now, most are women, and a few of you are guy friends who talk art with me.
I thank you for reading these monthly letters.
Every part of me since September 2018 has shifted. Within one month, I was traveling the country as an event designer in the tech industry, having a run-in with a student threatening my safety in a college course I taught, discovering I was pregnant, and accepting a dream position with Chaco while simultaneously being invited to work on an event in the Netherlands on my due date, and training for my second half-marathon.
I say this not to brag (ok, maybe a little to brag) but to express that when the global pandemic happened and I was furloughed while pregnant and lost all my breastfeeding & delivery classes, and labored with an OB I didn’t trust to deliver my first baby while unsure if my partner could be with me during labor — well, I’ve changed. I imagine you have too. I know you have your own version of loss, grief, and exasperation with what has transpired over the last few years.
You’re welcome to share it with me if you’d like.
I need to write these letters about creativity, motherhood, and healing. I’ve sketched a Venn diagram where they all intersect that I’m much too private to share at the moment but know it’s my reference to go more in-depth in future letters.
Mainly because I’ve had many conversations with people having similar questions and thoughts as me. Whether it’s a distracted discussion on the playground with children pulling at our limbs, a one-liner in the checkout line during endless errand runs, or a text conversation spanning days, we are all asking one another — about our bodies after babies, about the intricacies of emotions with parenting, and the often humorous struggle to find a slice of solitude for our art. Or a nap.
Can I share with you a really far-out dream I have? I hope to write a book someday.
Until then, letters to you, my friend.
Have a wonderful weekend, Em