perhaps incredibly: Station 11, the winter Olympics, and my eldest son's birthday all in one cohesive post. At least *I* think it's cohesive. Let me know what you think.
I’ve both read and watched Station 11. Although I loved the book (and its companion book, the Glass Hotel), the show brought some new elements to it that I enjoyed even more. Episode 7 was my favorite episode, maybe one of my favorite episodes of television. (On the other hand I hated episode 9.) I, too, was moved by the way the show portrayed children as complex, capable people who both contribute and depend on you.
My oldest is 13, and I still remember holding her as a newborn, real, pressed against me and yet a distinct and separate being, and I was crying and my husband asked me why and I answered “because she’s already growing away from me”. He thought I was being funny and overly dramatic, but I was serious and I can still feel what I felt then: a part of myself had broken free of my body and was already on a slow, but steady trajectory away from me. I know that’s good and right, and it’s in many ways easier now that she’s tall and bony and doesn’t smell like a newborn baby when I kiss her head, but that vulnerable and unsteady sense of just letting your heart walk around outside your body never goes away.
This was really beautiful. And makes me want to read/watch Station 11. (The resemblance to Kirsten is extremely there, happy birthday to Ethan!) How lovely, to have this writing from different times in his life to lay out in a triptych like this.
I’m not a mom, but I have a mom; and reading this makes me think of her, and getting to see her soon for the first time in a while, being 30 and living far away — the only trip with just the two of us we’ve gotten to take in close to a decade. We both can’t talk about anything but how impatient we are for it. It’s a wonderful, sad, happy feeling.
Being a mom is special and unique but it’s clearly not the only way to experience love or even protective love. My hope for people who aren’t parents is that they will be able to somehow get at least in a small way how precious they are to their parents (or parental figures, if their parents are terrible).
Beautifully written. Love the line "this layered view of time". Good way of saying it. They really aren't flashbacks. The show makes you feel that all the moments are happening at the same time. Layered like you say.
One other movie did this well. Arrival. The sci-fi film from a couple years ago. Also about parenting in a way. I think you'd love it if you haven't seen it yet.
This was so touching. I love that you have that writing from the past woven thorough, and that will be such a wonderful thing for your kids to have, too (they may not appreciate it now, but they definitely will someday). I don't have kids, not because I made some big decision against it, but because I was always ambivalent and then life just went a certain way. Sometimes I'll see a certain kind of nerdy little boy and get a pang, but it doesn't happen all that often. This gave me pangs, though. In a good way. Thanks for sharing it. (And I'll add Station 11 to my ever-growing list of books/tv!)
Parenting is definitely not for the half-hearted so I don't begrudge anyone who chooses not to have kids for whatever reason. There are a handful of women I consider mentors from various points in my life and that kind of relationship isn't unlike parenting. Just less fraught and exhausting haha. Thanks for your kind words.
Such a lovely post. We parents live in layered time: we see our kids at every moment in their lives. We remember when their foot was the length of our middle finger at their birth (too big to fit in the rectangle on the birth record!), and the shoe-shopping expeditions all the way up to their current size-15 monstrosities. To take a personal example.
Our kids, though, are the arrows we’ve shot forward (great analogy, btw!). They get embarrassed if we bring up memories from when they were little. (Or at least mine do; my son has even forbidden me to use the word “kids,” a prohibition that I gleefully ignore. Kids kids kids.) But their time will come.
And I am relieved that I won’t have to be blocked: Ethan is a dead ringer for that actress. It’s an amazing resemblance.
I’m not crying, YOU’re crying! Yes I didn’t even get into the art aspect of the show, which was huge. The costumes the characters created for plays they put on were truly phenomenal. Now I look forward to reading the book.
Anyone can be a parent, and being a parent changes you—if you do it right, it changes you for the better. But there’s also something to be said for being a birth mother. Millions of us do it, but it’s a rare experience in an individual life.
Listen, there may be a glut of BAs in the world, but I cherish the opportunities I had to do something unconventional at times—like your play script! I’m going to have to look into her books. It was simply too good to ignore.
I’ve both read and watched Station 11. Although I loved the book (and its companion book, the Glass Hotel), the show brought some new elements to it that I enjoyed even more. Episode 7 was my favorite episode, maybe one of my favorite episodes of television. (On the other hand I hated episode 9.) I, too, was moved by the way the show portrayed children as complex, capable people who both contribute and depend on you.
My oldest is 13, and I still remember holding her as a newborn, real, pressed against me and yet a distinct and separate being, and I was crying and my husband asked me why and I answered “because she’s already growing away from me”. He thought I was being funny and overly dramatic, but I was serious and I can still feel what I felt then: a part of myself had broken free of my body and was already on a slow, but steady trajectory away from me. I know that’s good and right, and it’s in many ways easier now that she’s tall and bony and doesn’t smell like a newborn baby when I kiss her head, but that vulnerable and unsteady sense of just letting your heart walk around outside your body never goes away.
It’s true, about that growing away from you feeling! My son is two and here it is already!
This was really beautiful. And makes me want to read/watch Station 11. (The resemblance to Kirsten is extremely there, happy birthday to Ethan!) How lovely, to have this writing from different times in his life to lay out in a triptych like this.
I’m not a mom, but I have a mom; and reading this makes me think of her, and getting to see her soon for the first time in a while, being 30 and living far away — the only trip with just the two of us we’ve gotten to take in close to a decade. We both can’t talk about anything but how impatient we are for it. It’s a wonderful, sad, happy feeling.
I get it completely, that last line of yours.
Being a mom is special and unique but it’s clearly not the only way to experience love or even protective love. My hope for people who aren’t parents is that they will be able to somehow get at least in a small way how precious they are to their parents (or parental figures, if their parents are terrible).
Congratulations on getting a FdB mention! Fine writing, as always.
You’re too kind
Beautifully written. Love the line "this layered view of time". Good way of saying it. They really aren't flashbacks. The show makes you feel that all the moments are happening at the same time. Layered like you say.
One other movie did this well. Arrival. The sci-fi film from a couple years ago. Also about parenting in a way. I think you'd love it if you haven't seen it yet.
I have and I do! I entered FdB’s book review contest awhile back and referenced Arrival in it!
This was so touching. I love that you have that writing from the past woven thorough, and that will be such a wonderful thing for your kids to have, too (they may not appreciate it now, but they definitely will someday). I don't have kids, not because I made some big decision against it, but because I was always ambivalent and then life just went a certain way. Sometimes I'll see a certain kind of nerdy little boy and get a pang, but it doesn't happen all that often. This gave me pangs, though. In a good way. Thanks for sharing it. (And I'll add Station 11 to my ever-growing list of books/tv!)
Parenting is definitely not for the half-hearted so I don't begrudge anyone who chooses not to have kids for whatever reason. There are a handful of women I consider mentors from various points in my life and that kind of relationship isn't unlike parenting. Just less fraught and exhausting haha. Thanks for your kind words.
Such a lovely post. We parents live in layered time: we see our kids at every moment in their lives. We remember when their foot was the length of our middle finger at their birth (too big to fit in the rectangle on the birth record!), and the shoe-shopping expeditions all the way up to their current size-15 monstrosities. To take a personal example.
Our kids, though, are the arrows we’ve shot forward (great analogy, btw!). They get embarrassed if we bring up memories from when they were little. (Or at least mine do; my son has even forbidden me to use the word “kids,” a prohibition that I gleefully ignore. Kids kids kids.) But their time will come.
And I am relieved that I won’t have to be blocked: Ethan is a dead ringer for that actress. It’s an amazing resemblance.
I’m not crying, YOU’re crying! Yes I didn’t even get into the art aspect of the show, which was huge. The costumes the characters created for plays they put on were truly phenomenal. Now I look forward to reading the book.
Anyone can be a parent, and being a parent changes you—if you do it right, it changes you for the better. But there’s also something to be said for being a birth mother. Millions of us do it, but it’s a rare experience in an individual life.
Listen, there may be a glut of BAs in the world, but I cherish the opportunities I had to do something unconventional at times—like your play script! I’m going to have to look into her books. It was simply too good to ignore.