The Mother of Invention
A 1950's writer teaching the paradoxes of creativity, links I love, & a poem
“Not a moment to sit down and think…That death of the creative process...I am being destroyed.”
“Pushed by the most elementary force--money--further more impossibly away from writing...Compulsion so fierce at night
brutal impulse to shove Julie away from typewriter
Voices of kids calling--to be able to chop chop chop like hands from the lifeboat to leave me free...My conflict--to reconcile work with life...Time it festered and congested postponed deferred and once started up again the insane desire, like an aroused woman...conscious of the creative abilities within me, more than I can encompass...1953-1954: I keep on dividing myself and flow apart, I who want to run in one river and become great.”
- Writer Tille Olsen, probably in 1954 but we don’t really know, because she didn’t keep a journal, she just wrote things on undated scraps of paper shoved into her typewriter (quoted here).
I just finished this book about some of the founding women who benefited from the Radcliffe Institute for Independent study in the 1950’s. I had vaguely heard of some of them, but I had never heard of Tillie Olsen. (I’m ashamed, okay, I’m ashamed. I didn’t take any Women’s Literature courses in college) She’s interesting, because she worked. (Unlike the other mothers who joined the institute and had husbands with high-paying jobs who were essentially just sitting around the Boston suburbs creating cocktails and making those gelatin salads that were so popular after World War 2).
Her husband worked in a print shop and she worked in various factories and secretarial positions throughout her life to make ends meet. She also had four children.
All she really wanted to do was write. In fact, when she was much younger and had less children, she wrote a prize-winning short story. She had a dream of writing the next great proletarian novel. But she could only ever manage short stories, and found her creative energy being split up between work, kids and home, and her desire to write.
I’m finding these sort of desperate declarations: “I will never write!” scattered throughout all of these biographies of writing mothers. And yet, somehow they did. We know who Tillie Olsen is because through the advocacy of some women poets and writers (that she met through fan mail!) she was able to get a place at the Institute. She listed her hourly wages for factory and secretarial work where other people listed their research or PhD dissertations. And she went on to become a university lecturer, shaping the literary canon to include more women’s voices, advocating for the many women like her.
I guess what I’m saying is -- I’ve never shoved my children away from my laptop. But I understand where it comes from. And if you’ve ever felt that way, don’t worry, you’re just joining the long line of mothers who are trying to reconcile work and life and creativity, who feel chopped up into pieces when all they want is to “flow into one river and become great.”
Tillie Olsen’s writing became famous because she had real-life characters with real-life dialects, facing real-life struggles of poverty and class. She wrote what came from her life, something none of those Boston housewives could have written.
It’s an interesting paradox.
The things that keep us from writing are sometimes the source of our creative engines.
A child’s curiosity.
The way a toddler matches unmatched words.
The connection to our bodies.
The mundane tasks of caring and carrying.
A relationship that breaks you open and fills you up.
No matter the limits, humans find ways to create.
Or, to quote my favorite author on the topic (describing the March sister’s theatrical performances):
“Being still too young to go often to the theater, and not rich enough to afford any great outlay for private performances, the girls put their wits to work, and necessity being the mother of invention, made whatever they needed.”
Right then. Let’s get our wits to work.
Tiny House Peek:
We got patio lights. And so it is now magical. It’s actually very hard to take a photo of the tiny house that makes it look as nice and inviting and homey as it FEELS (rather than like a random trailer with child junk scattered around), so I love this picture, because this is what the tiny house always looks like in my heart :D
Links I love:
I discovered this Substack newsletter “Write Like a Mother” and it is for me. Several people have asked me to interview living mother authors, well, here you go. Here’s an excerpt from the author who currently has a newborn. Let me tell you, I have ALL. THE. TIME for anyone writing with a newborn. Also I love that Magnatiles feature. These are CRITICAL items in our house! “But now, a finished dissertation and two additional children later, I know that the time, the energy, the ideas, they will all come back. I know that babies don’t need to be held always and forever and that at some point this one will also have a regular nap schedule or spend the better part of an hour building elaborate Magnatile structures. I know that, actually, sometimes you can hold your baby and write if you’re willing to use the Notes app.”
For beautiful images of God and motherhood, here’s another lovely newsletter: “I think it’s fair to assume that every mother since the dawn of time has, at some point, hovered over her newborn’s bassinet like the Spirit of God over the waters of creation, watching her baby’s chest rise and fall like ocean waves.”
Not a link, but we went camping, and it was beautiful, and there were giraffes (but only terrible pictures of the giraffes. But it’s true).
This was a fun thread of people commenting with their favorite fictional mothers! Who is yours?
Poem
(this is a poem I wrote on mothers day on my phone —in true mother-writer fashion— and it seemed to resonate with a lot of people. For those not on social media- here you go! I feel that Tillie Olsen would approve.)
Thanks for taking time to read this! I love hearing all your thoughts and replies! If you have any questions or things you wish to know about the mother writers, let me know! :) I want this space to serve you all.