2024 December Delights

The writing life, Marriage, Motherhood, some things that brought JOY

Welcome to the end-of-the-month edition of Tears of Things- The Monthly Delights! This is for paid subscribers as fun bonus content for supporting this newsletter.

The Monthly Delights is an end of the month round up where I share all the things I’ve been enjoying lately.

Become a paid subscriber to join the fun! AND if becoming a paid subscriber is not financially possible for you, email me and I’ll comp you a subscription, no questions.

This writing project that I named Tears of Things was birthed March 2023 with my first post published 3/21, the day after my 41st birthday. In April 2024 I welcomed my third and last child and this newsletter has taken a necessary back burner as I’ve adjusted to Mothering three children in three distinct and, I find, exciting/challenging phases- a newly driving teenager in a new school, a 3 year old in her first year of preschool, and a crawling baby! All while my spouse spent several months working out of state!

middle aged white mom with with streaked brown hair in a white shirt and green silk baby carrier holding a cute 8 month old baby in it with light brown hair. I blame him for taking up all my time!!

I continue to write in the margins of my life.

I wrote this newsletter over a span of three days time- alone upstairs in a shared bedroom while the baby slept in the big dark closet in his crib; alone at a shared table in the tiny public library of Saluda SC where the smell of a fellow patron overwhelmed me to the point of distraction, and now on the couch in the living room while my toddler plays next to me with our vintage Fisher Price set and she tells me "Carlos is in jail!” I keep reading accounts of Mother Writers who wrote in the early mornings or after bedtime, but after bedtime my brain doesn’t work for anything except reading books, watching TV or window shopping online; and I have yet to figure out how to make early mornings work with a nursing baby who has been favoring waking between 5 and 6am! Many of these writers were in untenable marriages, driven by something hotter and fierce than I am. I am content in my marriage. A marriage where I have more freedom than most women in heterosexual marriages- from our understanding around consensual non-monogamy to separate money plus shared money to equitable distribution of childcare and house work- plus our ongoing discussion and self-reflection on such things- I feel proud of the relationship my spouse Carsten and I have forged. Our relationship is by no means perfect, there are things we are still learning even after six years, things we know not to poke right now, things we wish where different.

Therefore I wonder, when we are content, when we feel seen supported, nourished, more days than not, are we less driven? What is the roll of creation and writing in particular when, in this modern age we have reached a saturation point? I’m 42 now and feel like the past few years went by in a blink of an eye. That I’m 42 now and I need to "MAKE IT!” I’m thinking about drive and motivation and the factors that propel us to create, make our mark, that sort of thing. The writing life requires focus and time and editing and by nature sitting still- things often incompatible with raising small children. Sometimes I think I will take up some other avocation and become quite skilled in it - metalsmithing or clothes-making, but writing is the thing I have done since childhood, it is the thing I return to time and time again….

As a person with a multitude of interests I am always scheming how to weave them together to exist under the same roof so to speak. That’s why I am excited for 2025 and the launch of the Tears of Things monthly interview series. This series will feature written interviews with people doing deep work out in the world. From midwives and birthworkers to community grief tenders to plant whisperers and poets to sexuality educators! I’m hoping this interview series will enervate not only my writing practice but bring in new subscribers.

Thank you for being here. Welcome and thank you to some new paying subscribers!

Please take a moment to like this post and then go back and like all my others posts- EVEN if you haven’t read them yet, or listened to that week’s grief song- the small action of LIKING the posts can help this newsletter become a bit more visible in the great ocean that is Substack and helps me grow this newsletter.

And now for the last Monthly Delights for 2024!

Including some Pantone colors of the years!