a mother's musings vol.4

I went back to work, saw the Eras Tour, and I'm starting a podcast...

Hello Substack friends! It’s been a minute! I hope you all enjoyed the summer, or at least survived it. September is here, and it feels like summer is over, in the UK at least. The hedgerows are full of blackberries, the leaves have started to turn into myriad shades of brown, yellow and orange, and of course, it is raining. The end of summer, and the coming of autumn, always feels like a kind of reckoning to me. It is a reminder of the unfinished plans, and the things left undone. I always start summer with an ambitious list of goals: redecorate the living room, upcycle that vintage high chair, give my business website a face lift, ORGANISE THE GARAGE, clear out my wardrobe…and then of course I don’t manage most of them, because life in all its sweetness gets in the way. Instead, I look back on a summer that, whilst less productive than I might have hoped, was full of happy memories and precious moments with my family.

What ‘back to work’ looks like for me

August was an especially busy time for me, I finished maternity leave and started back to work with my wedding coordination business. Despite trying to keep this summer very quiet work-wise, it still absorbed a lot of time and energy, meaning that I haven’t really had the headspace to put into writing. I’ve missed reading all of your pieces, but I find that there’s only so many things I can juggle before my brain reaches its limit, and for several weeks I felt like my brain was really at that limit.

“August slipped away into a moment in time
'Cause it was never mine”

I recently took on a last minute wedding design client, who is getting married this December, so suddenly I felt really under pressure. I told my husband earlier this week that I felt like my brain was fried, and he responded with “well you should probably steam it instead, have you tried the sauna”. Yes, my husband is hilarious.

Forever fluffing napkins, straightening chairs, and lighting candles

Anyway, he then offered to take our toddler to visit his parents for a few days so that I would have some uninterrupted time to work. I kept our eight month old at home with me, but oh my goodness what a difference! I have spent the last few days neck deep in Pinterest boards, linen samples, and colour palettes and I am a new woman. I even watched the entirety of the BBC 1995 Pride and Prejudice, and completed a 1000 piece puzzle. It’s the little things in life. My toddler has had an equally wonderful time with her grandparents, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t actually want to come home tonight, Granny and Grandad are much more exciting than mummy.

I also squeezed in a trip to see Taylor Swift at The Eras Tour in London, which seemed like a fantastic idea when I booked the tickets last summer, but ended up being quite the drama, complete with me getting food poisoning the day of the concert and throwing up violently in the toilets at Waterloo Station. I was saved by coconut water and anti-sickness tablets, but it did the shine off the whole thing somewhat. I had carted my husband and eight month old baby up to London with me, because said baby won’t take a bottle and co-sleeps, so the plan was that we would all spend the night with my brother and his wife in London then drive home in the morning. However, our baby, who was good as gold whilst I was out, then absolutely would not settle to sleep, so at 2am we made the decision to drive back to Devon. She slept like a log all the way home, but we didn’t get to bed till 5am. Ten years ago I would have taken this in my stride, but, with my mid-30s staring me in the face, I now feel too old and tired for such exploits.

podcast update: introducing The Wisdom of Women podcast

Interior of a Kitchen with a Woman, a Child and a Maid, by Pieter de Hooch

I did have one bright idea, which I put out as a hastily typed Note at the start of August:

I was only half serious at the time, but I got such an overwhelmingly positive response that I am now fully intending to try and make this podcast a reality. Yes, The Wisdom of Women Podcast is happening. Stay tuned for updates, and if you would like to be a guest on the podcast then let me know. I am interested in talking to women from all walks and stages of life. The goal is to start a conversation amongst women, and to create a space where they can share their experiences of navigating the tricky waters of career, singleness, marriage, pregnancy, infertility, childbirth, motherhood, the (what feels like) competing demands of the work of the home and work in the public sphere, ways in which we can honour and respect female physiology in a world that often feels like it’s set up for male physiology…hopefully you get the idea.

books we’re reading: 📚

One for me, one for my toddler…

Into the Deep by Abigail Favale

This book has been on my radar for a while, and I finally bought a copy as a gift for myself when I got my first paid subscriber recently. I devoured Favale’s more recent book The Genesis of Gender, which was also the book that reignited my own interest in Christianity, somewhat against my will if I’m being totally honest. I was already somewhat familiar with Favale’s conversion story, but I have thoroughly enjoyed reading her own account of it. Raised Evangelical, but in the Mormon belt of America, Favale discovered feminist hermeneutics whilst at college, and ended up abandoning her faith for feminism. Motherhood forced her to confront the contradictions and limitations inherent within liberal feminism, and her long quest for affirmation of her dignity as a woman found an unexpected conclusion when she became a Roman Catholic. Her journey is wandering and full of wonder, and if you have ever wrestled with the question of “what does it mean to be a woman made in the image of God” then you will enjoy this book. Favale has a knack for putting into words things that I have long felt and struggled to articulate clearly. Reading about her fascination with the Incarnation resonated so much with my own search for a truly embodied understanding of womanhood:

“The Incarnation - ah, a mystery I could never quit. Or perhaps it's the other way around; The Incarnation never let go of me...And now, through Catholicism, the Incarnation came alive again, was made flesh again, mere symbol no more - how, after all, could incarnation ever be just a disembodied symbol? It is Catholicism, I realized, more than any other form of Christianity, that fully celebrates this mystery that is the heart of the faith.”

Katie Morag’s Island Stories by Mairi Hedderwick

The Katie Morag stories are absolutely charming, with beautiful hand drawn illustrations. The titular character lives on a remote island off the coast of Scotland with her parents, who run the village shop and Post Office. The stories show Katie’s parents juggling the needs of their work and their growing family, and cover things like the arrival of a new sibling, making mistakes, and the joys and tensions of extended family relationships. Highly recommend.

substack saves: 📖

I know I have missed a lot of great writing over the past month, but I did catch these three pieces, all of which are in a similar kind of vein, and which resonate with the ideas I was mulling over with regards to the podcast.

Men’s Jeans Don’t Fit Feminine Curves by

Amelia Buzzard

I loved this piece by Amelia: “The shape of the American career path doesn’t match the shape of the female life. How would it have to change for women to truly thrive?”

The Lost Feminine Sphere by

Emily Hancock

Emily wrote an equally brilliant response to Amelia’s original piece that offered an answer to some of the questions Amelia posed at the end of her essay.

“So I suppose my answer is that optimization for all aspects of life in the childbearing years shouldn’t be the goal post. I think we have to come to terms with the fact that should we become mothers, much is asked of us. We have to understand that many of the requests of motherhood aren’t actually optional. When we make them optional, there are consequences, and no amount validation from those who also make requisite parts of motherhood optional can actually change those consequences.”

Monday Morning Motherhood in Late-Stage Capitalism by

Brittany Chambers

I have followed Brittany on Instagram for some time, and I was thrilled when I saw that she had started writing on Substack. This piece really moved me.

previously published on A Mother’s Progress:

In case you missed them…

That’s it from me for now, have a great week and thanks for reading! As always, if you enjoyed this piece then please share and subscribe.