Baby time slippage and a book recommendation

Yes, it's the Miranda July book.

Well, hello!

It’s been nearly a year since I last wrote to you, which is a pretty relaxed cadence for a newsletter. But time here has been acting funny.

When I last dropped in, our second baby, Nelle, was a still a couple weeks away from being born. Now, she’s less than a month from her first birthday. On one hand, it seems unbelievable that she’s nearly a year old. But those days around her birth feel like a lifetime ago. (And for her, they are!) 

Maybe the cruelest irony so far of motherhood—and perhaps the one that sets us up for the whole show—is the way those first few months just slip between your fingers. 

Time is slippery anyway, but when you’re sleep-deprived it feels even harder to be fully present, to dive in headfirst and immerse yourself in the moment. Of course you can see how tiny, how precious, how achingly soft this little being is. But it’s hard to take in when your body is also giving, giving, giving—especially to more than one kid. And then when you’re finally starting to climb out of the zone of debating whether to eat, sleep, or shower during the baby’s short nap, that teeny mushy imp is … gone. 

Now she’s got a tooth. Now she’s saying “hi.” She’s crawling. She’s pulling herself up. SIX teeth?

Of course, each ending is also a new beginning. But the end of the newborn stage is somehow both gradual and a gut-punch. It’s like trying to grasp a really good dream, but—Oh shit!—you’ve overslept, and you’re late. Where did she go? I wasn’t ready.

Like so many moments in motherhood, we just gulp and keep going. 

Miranda July takes a beat for this brutal truth in her new novel All Fours, which I found to be moving, funny, so fucking intimate, and smart—and also far more relatable than her other work. (It’s clearly more personal.) The story, as you may know, begins with a 45-year-old Miranda July-ish artist and mother embarking on a road trip, which turns into something of a midlife crisis/renaissance.

“I suddenly missed Sam desperately,” she writes. “Why was I speeding away from them when all I ever wanted was to hold them?”

This passage goes on for perhaps my favorite page (33), but rather than copying it down here for you, I’m just going to recommend that you get the book and read it all because it’s remarkable.

I suggested it for my book club—of which I’m actually only a tangential member; it’s mostly hot moms of Laurel Canyon—and I’m so bummed I’ll be away for our next meeting. I loved All Fours and am desperate to hear what others thought. As soon as I finished, I started again. 

My friend Dana, who has just finished Part One (of four), told me she’s already worried about what she could possibly read after this. The answer for me was two profiles of Miranda July (first Mother Tongue’s, then The New Yorker’s, which, be warned, is rife with spoilers). I next considered both Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway or Dana Spiotta’s Wayward, both of which came recommended as part of the “midlife crisis” canon in this fun episode of the New Yorker’s “Critics At Large” podcast on the topic.

But first, I’m picking up Big Swiss, which takes place in Hudson, New York. A pal made me promise I would read it before heading there later this month.

So anyway, that’s me, embarking shortly on my own midlife crisis! Just kidding—it’s only an east coast family tour with no fewer than five destinations. Wish me luck. (It’s the packing, really.)

I recommend bringing All Fours wherever it is you’re headed, even if it’s just to bed. I’m trying something new and opening the chat (see below), in case you too are dying to discuss it.

Have a good day!

Jenni

PS

Maybe you already have something like this green spaghetti sauce in your repertoire, but man, has it been a welcome addition to mine (compliments of the aforementioned Dana). This comes together fast, and packs a bunch of greens and flavor into a rich sauce that the whole fam gobbles up. Yes, it leaves green slime all over them, but that feels like a fair price for well-fed kiddos in a few minutes flat. I ditch the garlic and have sometimes used Boursin in place of the feta. Frozen spinach works in a pinch. It would probably also be great with anchovies, just be aware they’d add some salt. Bonus: This freezes like a dream.