Five Years Out
December 6th, 2013Mama, PhD turned five this summer and I had grand plans for a birthday celebration. I imagined a blog tour, visiting the blogs that reviewed the book five years ago; I solicited updates from all the book’s contributors, asking how life — inside academia and out — had changed for them since the book’s publication, and planned to publish them here.
But because the book is a quiet object that sits on my shelf, its birthday was superseded by the more clamorous, insistent demands and schedules of the people (and now kittens) living in my house.
Still, updates from contributors came steadily into my inbox all summer, and I’ll be publishing them over the next few weeks. For now, here’s mine. Tune in for more…
My essay for Mama, PhD, “The Bags I Carried,” began as a chronological list. Although I ultimately smoothed the piece out into a narrative, I still often think in terms of dates and milestones. Reflecting back on the last five years, I couldn’t help but think about what’s changed and what’s not.
2008: Mama, PhD is published, after three years of work.
2013: My second anthology, The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage, is published, after five years of work.
2008: kids in preschool and kindergarten
2013: kids in 3rd and 6th grade
2008: expecting I’ll get more work done when my kids are in school fulltime
2013: understanding that my kids take as much of my attention/consideration/thought as they take, even if they are not in the house as much
2008: six years since I’d been teaching in a classroom
2013: eleven years since I’ve been teaching in a classroom (and thus, more years not teaching than teaching)
2008: youngest child able to sound out his name in the dedication to Mama, PhD
2013: youngest child reads my essay for Cassoulet before publication and says, “It’s a good essay, Mama.” I can’t get a more meaningful review, but the book does inspire some nice ones.
2008: dinner table conversations with the kids about planets and space, interrupted by their loud bodily functions and subsequent giggling
2013: dinner table conversations with the kids about planets and space, interrupted by their loud bodily functions and subsequent giggling
2008: one co-edited anthology with a writer I met through Literary Mama
2013: a second co-edited anthology“ with a writer I met through Literary Mama
2008: wrote a column for Literary Mama about the challenge of continuing to make art after becoming a parent
2013: in the third year of working with my husband to support parent writers and artists through The Sustainable Arts Foundation
2008: “Congratulations on Mama, PhD! What are you working on for your next book?”
2013: “Congratulations on Cassoulet! What are you working on for your next book?”
Stay tuned, I say, stay tuned…
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