There are those days when my best-laid writing plans get lost among the myriad needs of my household, my family of four, my scattered mind. On a day or a series of days like that, I find it nearly inevitable that I end the night with a berate of myself: “You need to be more disciplined.” “You should be so dedicated nothing gets in your way”. I recommit then with a new fervor and undying declarations of self-promise. In the morning, work plan securely in place the toilet paper runs out, I forget to buy cat food or the middle school needs a chaperone. Later. I’ll do it later. But then there’s dinner, every single day, without exception, dinner must be made and homework and that glue stick we just have to have tonight. So, the work doesn’t get done or only partially done or notes, just a few notes jotted on the back of a grocery list. A glance at myself in the mirror before bed elicits a disappointed frown which leads to me directly back to verbal self-flagellation and, if I am not careful, boatloads of self-doubt.
The other day, in an effort to break this decidedly unhelpful cycle, I pulled Tillie Olsen’s “Silences” down from my bookshelf and happened on a chapter entitled “The Angel In The House”. To end this chapter, Ms. Olsen includes an excerpt from a Paris Review “Writers at Work” interview with Katherine Anne Porter.
The question to KAP: …haven’t you found that being a woman presented to you, an artist, certain special problems?….
KAP’s answer: I think that is very true and very right. You’re brought up with the curious idea of feminine availability in all spiritual ways, and in giving service to anyone who demands it. And I suppose that is why it has taken me twenty years to write this novel; it’s been interrupted by just anyone who could jimmy his way into my life.
Aha and Thank God! My struggle is not unusual, not some failing of my own commitment or discipline, but instead the unique and honest challenge of women writers throughout the ages. For centuries, women writers have struggled for space amid the distraction and demands of those they love and care for. So common is the struggle, in fact, as to be recognized as a common truth of creative women’s lives. Why else does “a room of one’s own” resonate so? What a relief to know I am not alone.
And yet, it is no excuse. No indeed. Women write. Despite the myriad needs, demands and follies that may “jimmy their way in” women have written. Less perhaps than they would have, likely less than they had hoped, but still they have written, giving powerful voice to the stories women need to tell.
We women writers are forever in the debt of these multitasking, driven, brave and committed women for forging ahead, for carrying the torch of women’s creative work so we may all see our way in what can still be a dark, blind alley.
And if I may be so bold, I will carry that torch on, around simple family demands like homework and high school tests and more complex ones like aging parents and illness. I will carry it for myself, for the other women who work in stolen moments today, and for all the women who will come behind me harboring the same daring dreams to tell the stories that need telling. Without my foremothers there might not be me. Without me, there might not be the daughters to come. So, if all I write today is this small essay, that will do. It is not nothing and above all it is true.
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Jessica Ciosek lives in New York City with her husband and two children. Her first published short story appeared in the Minerva Rising “Mothers” issue. She is currently finishing her first novel.
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Jessica’s piece “Aunt Ruth’s Purse” can be found in Issue 4: Mothers.
