Hi, me again.

Still reading. Just, well... about a slightly different topic.

My brain has been occupied by many other things, hence my absence from The Booth™. And, according to Matrescence, is actively changing. If you’re not familiar with the term, it means: “The process of becoming a mother.”

Yes, I am just a few weeks away from giving birth and becoming a mother. Even saying the word mother in the context of my identity feels foreign, and signals the change I’m undergoing and feeling on a daily basis. I’m not one for writing about something incredibly personal, but the past eight months have been all-consuming and it would be disingenuous for me not to acknowledge it.

I’ve still been reading quite a lot, just on slightly different topics that don’t necessarily lend themselves to a Library Booth set-up. What I can share though, are the few reads that have really engaged me during this time.

Matrescence by Lucy Jones

This is a magical book. I’ve started to re-read it again as I head into that last few final weeks. I read it towards the end of my first trimester going into the second - and I can only imagine it’ll feel even more powerful now. The author touches on the personal and scientific elements of Matrescence and begins each new section of the book with a metaphorical connection to something in nature. Whether it be tadpoles, a volcano, or spiders, I found each of these excerpts breathtaking. It laid the groundwork for what the next topic was going to be while making you feel a part of something much bigger.

A few quotes I love:

“From the moment I was pregnant, I didn’t just feel different. I was different. I am different. On a cellular level. I would never be singular again.”

“Volcanoes are the ultimate agents of change. They can destroy but they can also create. Few beings are more dynamic.”

“Frog spawn mass together in a jellied gloop, each globe squidgy and hard like an eyeball. The black round dot in the middle is the size of a peppercorn. It doesn’t seem possible that it will change but one morning, well, there it is and the peppercorn is no longer a peppercorn but an elongated comma.”

A Life’s Work by Rachel Cusk

I was hesitant to read this book since several reviews mentioned it was a bleaker look at motherhood, but, I love Rachel Cusk and after reading it I couldn’t disagree more. It was written in 2001, when there probably weren’t many frank accounts of what motherhood should look and feel like. A lot of the narrative has always been around how it’s a magical time of connection with the new human being that you’ve brought into this world, and while that is the case, many people have failed to explore the actual transformation of what the mother goes through emotionally and physically—leaning on the child’s becoming rather than the mother’s. Going to borrow another poignant quote here from Lucy Jones:

"Everyone knows adolescents are uncomfortable and awkward because they are going through extreme mental and bodily changes, but, when they have a baby, women are expected to transition with ease—to breeze into a completely new self, a new role, at one of the most perilous and sensitive times in their life course.”

Cusk’s A Life’s Work is a more personal and blunt account of the above:

“To be a mother I must leave the telephone unanswered, work undone, arrangements unmet. To be myself I must let the baby cry, must forestall her hunger or leave her for evenings out, must forget her in order to think about other things. To succeed in being one means to fail at being the other. The break between mother and self was less clean than I had imagined it in the taxi: and yet it was a premonition, too; for later, even in my best moments, I never feel myself to have progressed beyond this division. I merely learn to legislate for two states, and to secure the border between them.”

The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante

A short, but not necessarily an easy read from one of my favorites, Elena Ferrante. After you read this, I recommend watching the film with Olivia Coleman and Dakota Johnson. The novel includes lots of moments of reflection and inner dialogue so the fact that they translated that so well into a film script was impressive. Most of the credit there goes to Olivia Coleman and how she brought Leda to life.

I will warn you, the narrator may not be your favorite, but I was completely drawn into her story. It’s a deeper look at motherhood and what that can do to your identity and sense of self through the brutal lens of Leda’s thoughts.

“I realized long ago that I’ve held onto little of myself and everything of them.”

“How foolish to think you can tell your children about yourself before they're at least fifty. To ask to be seen by them as a person and not as a function. To say: I am your history, you begin from me, listen to me, it could be useful to you.”

Now, on to my TRL:

Beautiful Chaos by Jessica Urlichs

If you haven’t noticed, I’m really interested in the raw and honest accounts of motherhood. Of course, it’s beautiful, but it also comes with its struggles. This book of poems sound right up by alley.

Lie with Me by Phillippe Benson

I’m needing a tender romance to pulse in between books about motherhood, raising a child, and breastfeeding. If a book review mentions ‘for fans of Giovanni’s Room’ then they’ve already got me hooked.

Among Friends by Hal Ebbott

Caught my eye off the NY Times Summer fiction reading list. Seems like a powerful debut for this author.

Provence, 1970 by Luke Barr

I love Julia Child and getting to learn more about her story and time in Provence with James Beard entices me.

Four Mothers: An Intimate Journey through the First Year of Parenthood in Four Countries by Abigail Leonard

Need I say more?

If you read this far, wow, thank you. I hope some of the above connected with you or at the very least, intrigued you!