I’m a witchy mom now
I’m a witchy mom now
Also, what is all this for?
I used to fancy myself a cold, hard, logical person: a person who does not believe in ghosts, a person who demands peer-reviewed evidence for knowledge, a person who only accepts THE FACTS.
I am not this person anymore. Babies made me witchy.
No, not GOOP witchy: I don’t believe in crystals, laborious vitamin regimens, and the healing power of essential oils to cure your cancer. I’m more like church-mom witchy, which is that I now believe in ghosts and spirits and thin places and babies being eternity in disguise.
After having babies, I believe all sorts of mystical things I never did before. I believe small children, in particular, are especially close to the divine.
For instance: I believe that baby Lucinda has prominent birthmarks because she was indeed kissed by my late grandmother, her namesake, in heaven. I believe that small children, when they learn about birth and death, are not astonished because they are very close to all of it. I believe that young children can have memories of dead people they’ve never met. I believe that the kingdom of God belongs to them.
Life is a rich tapestry. Thin places abound, and children may be able to access them more readily than us adults. Why not? What do I lose, except my logical facade, if I confess that the world is far more mysterious than I’ve ever thought it was? And that tiny people have more fluency than I do in the mystical? I’m here for all of it now.
“Why do you write this Substack?” Sam recently asked me. “Like, what is it for?”
He meant: You’re not getting paid. You don’t have a big audience. No one is asking you for any of this. What’s this mania for sending emails? From whence does it come?
I gave him a few muddled responses:
I write to find out what I think. Doing so publicly helps me test out my ideas and attempt to sharpen them.
I write because I hope you’ll argue with me. Or at least take interest in some ideas and spawn a real-life conversation.
I write in the hope of a revelation. Since I could write, I’ve kept a diary. I have dozens of shame-inducing diaries stacked up somewhere in the basement, and along with this, I keep a private digital notebook and a five-year diary, which I write in every night, and which I have been keeping for nine years now.
I don’t know why I’ve always felt this need to write down all of these mundane events and thoughts, but it has strengthened my writing and bolstered my memory. Beyond that, I think diary-keeping helps me find meaning and gain perspective about my life.
I’m reading a run-of-the-mill gloomy-pandemic-mom memoir, and she mentioned the filmmaker Joseph Cornell’s obsessive diary-keeping, and I felt a flash of recognition:
“His goal with these ‘pennings,’ or ‘scribbles,’ as he called his diary practice, was to document something of the ephemeral, of the everyday, to reach toward this feeling of illumination or revelation.”
In my own way, I too am trying to document something of the ephemeral, which often floats to the surface, after habitually writing down the mind, day after day. Even in an email. Even in a Substack that only a handful of people read.
Best Substack posts I’ve read lately
Serious:
“Boundaries” and making up your own morality has created a minefield for modern relationships. This is immensely wise.
Not that serious:
Reject planned obsolescence! Choose household goods that are meant to last a lifetime.
Housekeeping Digest
Despite a recent back injury that made me feel like I was 85 years old, I’ve been in a house-cleaning mood lately.
A few recent delights around the home:
OXO tile brush and grout brush. Don’t even mess with anything else. These are the best. Excellent size, heft, and grip power; will last forever (re: post linked above). Cleaning tile and grout is the worst chore, bar none, but these brushes make it bearable.
These narrow bins for organizing tighter shelves. I use these all over the house now, especially in small cabinets and tight closets.
Giving stuff away on Facebook via the neighborhood Buy Nothing group. Honestly, mixed. I love giving things away to people who want or need them, but I also hate coordinating pick-ups because people are very flighty. But they can also be so kind. One woman wrote me a handwritten thank-you note because she’d been looking for a plastic cup just like mine to go in her UVA-themed office. So cute.
Splurging on luxe hand soap. This is a dumb thing that I care a lot about, which I probably inherited from my mom, who always has really nice hand products around the house. We’d sooner die than wash our pretty little hands with Dial antibacterial soap!! Two recent favorites:
My sister’s French lover (bonjour, Antoine!!) gave us the most glorious Marseille olive oil soap from his mother’s seaside hometown and now we don’t want to use anything else. He brings us big bricks once a year, and they smell like a sexy barn, and we’re obsessed. You can probably buy it from America, along with some exorbitant shipping fees, but I prefer to have a handsome Frenchman bring it to me in person by plane once a year. That’s just me.
I made the mistake of stopping in the Aesop store and trying their exfoliating hand wash when we were in New York this May, and… let me tell you. It’s like a miniature spa experience. I caved and bought a bottle (with my own small stash of old calligraphy money, Guion!! Stop judging me!!). It’s ludicrously expensive, and I am ashamed, but I also love it. I’m washing my hands into sweet oblivion.
Dedicating a bin for children’s clothing to donate or hand off has greatly simplified the child-clothes-management process in my home.
Currently Reading
Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar
The Light Room, Kate Zambreno
Baby-Led Weaning, Gill Rapley and Tracy Murkett
My grandmother, who just turned 92, diligently kept daily diaries in her young-mother years. I think this kind of record-keeping can be a profound gift both to the writer and to the next few generations.