If You Read One Book This Month: Splinters By Leslie Jamison
Recently I finished reading Leslie Jamison’s new memoir Splinters and when I went back and looked at the marginalia I left behind, I noticed how much of the book had to do with mothers as timekeepers. Not just in the sense of biological clocks that supposedly tick tick tick telling us how many years (months?) we have left to have a baby. But in all the other ways that clocks show up in our lives. From watching the clock to see when it’s naptime or bedtime to wondering whether whatever you’re doing when you’re not with your child is worthy of your time away.
For Jamison, there were no more days lost to drunkenness or lazing on the beach. Everything felt measured, doled out, calibrated – both more precious and more mundane than her pre-motherhood years.
Back in December, I wrote an essay for Vogue about how women are always on the clock. There’s this feeling I’ve experienced, that I haven’t heard voiced enough, that womanhood feels like wearing a rubberband on your wrist for eternity and whenever you get out of line, running too far or too fast, the patriarchy snaps the rubber band to remind you to get back in place. Kate Manne calls it a shock collar. And while Jamison doesn’t name the rubberband/shock collar phenomenon, it’s written all over her book.
She writes about how it felt dangerous to let herself want things because what if she didn’t get what she desired? She writes about living every moment with a sense that it had to be “good enough for someone else.”
As I read Jamison’s words, I found myself shouting YES YES YES to the page, scribbling feverish notes for my upcoming classes on Writing Rage and Rewriting Motherhood. Everyone knows our most precious resource is time. So, what does it mean that women’s time (whether we’re mothers or not) is never our own? It’s spent caretaking, beautifying, watching our calories/weight, waiting to be chosen, waiting for our menses, waiting for ovulation, and scrutinized by the male gaze.
Women are always watching the clock because we haven’t been allowed to be carefree, to wander, to zig instead of zag. We haven’t been allowed to be ourselves.
Upcoming Courses…
In this two-hour class, we’ll learn how to channel rage into something productive. We’ll look at some of the best writers (alive and dead) to see how they have turned their rage into writing that is raw, real and radical. Tuesday, April 9th, 4 - 6 pm ET.
In this class you’ll do generative writing exercises on topics such as maternal dread, ambivalence, the pressures of parenting in a society that keeps score on social media, and how to write about the path to parenting in a way that will communicate your specific experience to a larger audience. Thursday, May 2nd, 4 - 6 pm ET.
Plant the seeds with me this Spring for the story you’ve been meaning to tell. This interactive, 12-week workshop is for those who are just getting started, are early in the process or aren’t sure how to navigate the road ahead. Wednesdays, April 10th - June 19th, 3 - 5 pm ET.
In the class that meets on April 29th you will learn the basics of pitching from how to know what editors are looking for to how to know which publications will be the best fit for your work. We will walk through examples of pitches for both literary outlets + ones for mass market outlets. You’ll then have one week to work on an essay outline/pitch that you will present to a panel of editors on May 6th. Monday April 29th, 3 - 5 pm ET & Monday May 6th, 3:30 - 5 pm ET.