LOS ANGELES — Been a trip and a half reading Motherhood while posted with the mother this past month of holiday fam time / convalescence out here in LA. Has really propelled me into the nitty-grit of thangs.
In this episode, I go in with more gripes about Sheila's stance on procreation than I come out with.
I consider her view on the importance or lack thereof of Art. I hash out her ideas on family extending beyond the nuclear. And I give her props on the deepest idea of all: that Failure can never be communicated, must always be private, and yet is the only way to Freedom.
In this episode, I go in with more gripes about Sheila's stance on procreation than I come out with.
I consider her view on the importance or lack thereof of Art. I hash out her ideas on family extending beyond the nuclear. And I give her props on the deepest idea of all: that Failure can never be communicated, must always be private, and yet is the only way to Freedom.
Listen on iTunes
LINKS--
Buy or sample read (then buy) Motherhood here.
Listen to the legendary podcast episode that I keep referencing, that Sheila recorded, in Stockholm, while on tour for Motherhood here.
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REFERENCED QUOTES--
On Failure. “What if I pursue being a bad woman and don’t breed—pursue failing biologically? Where is the realm of privacy? Only in failure. Only in our failures are we absolutely alone. Only in the pursuit of failure can a person really be free.
“Losers May be the avant-garde of the modern age” (113).
Absence, Not Lack. “What is the main activity of a woman’s life, if not motherhood? How can I express the absence of this experience, without making central the lack? Can I say what such a life is an experience of not in relation to motherhood?” (159).
Ibid. “Maybe if I could somehow figure out what not having a child is an experience of—make it into an active action, rather than the lack of an action—I might know what I was experiencing, and not feel so much like I was waiting to act. I might be able to choose my life, and hold in my hands what I have chosen” (160).
On Coming Out. “I always felt jealous of the gay men I knew who spoke of having come out. I felt I would like to come out, too—but as what? I could never put my finger on it. […] I wanted to be able to say of myself—I have known this about myself since I was six years old. Some people were very condemning of me, but now I feel much better. I feel so much better since having come out. My life is now truly my own” (160).
Voluntary childlessness as sexual orientation. “Why don’t we understand some people who don’t want children as those with a different, perhaps biologically different, orientation? Wanting not to have children could even be called a sexual orientation, for what is more tied to sex than the desire to procreate or not?” (161).
Hm… “I resent the spectacle of all this breeding, which I see as a turning away from the living—an insufficient love for the rest of us, we billions of orphans already living. These people turn with open arms to a new life, hoping to make a happiness greater than their own, rather than tending to the already-living. It’s not right, it’s not kind, when everyone you look at is a crying baby, and there my friends go, making more—making another one!—another new light in the world. Certainly I am happy for them, but I am miserable for the rest of us—for that absolute kick in the teeth” (164).
Ovulation-syncopated mating. “She said it should be timed with the woman’s body: during the week of ovulation, couples should have sex daily, or several times a day, then refrain for the rest of the month. Those weeks of abstinence will build up a longing, and let the couple focus on other tasks” (167).
Nah… “I know what I want my old age to look like, more than I know almost anything else: a simple home, a simple life, no one needing me for anything, and not needing anyone the way I do now. If a person has children, there is worry till death” (178).
“They said that of course writing was important to them, but their children were much more important than that. I felt so put off. They seemed so unserious to me. I never wanted to be like that” (187).
Book-as-prophylactic. “I know the longer I work on this book, the less likely it is I will have a child. Maybe that is why I’m writing it—to get myself to the other shore, childless and alone. This book is a prophylactic” (193)
The lightness of solitude. “I am sitting here, writing, in order to discover the simple secret of my existence—what sort of creature I am. […] The aloneness of writing is coming to me again—the light, good feeling of being alone—the total aliveness of being alone” (228).
Art/trickery. “In the early days of writing this book, I thought it would be a trick: that I would write it and it would tell me whether I wanted to have a child. You think you are creating a trick with your art, but your art ends up tricking you” (272-3).
The wind. “Maybe I’ll just scatter [this book] like ash in the world—as if publishing a book is like scattering ashes from an urn—in the sea, in the forest, in a city, anywhere” (276).
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Sean Thor Conroe's work has appeared in X-R-A-Y, on sidewalks and in fields. He tweets @stconroe and archives other art at 1storyhaus.com
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