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Maybe Things Could Be Different

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Maybe Things Could Be Different

On Motherhood: A letter—call it a remembering, call it a poem—to myself before and after I became a mother

Jessy Easton
May 12, 2023
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A letter—call it a remembering, call it a poem—to myself before and after I became a mother.

BEFORE /

How you walked through the home goods aisle 
of a shitty department store in the Mojave
and told him you didn’t want kids, you said leave
if you want to, I won’t change my mind

How you flinched at the sight of a pregnant woman
walking across Venice Boulevard in the dead of summer
You drank vodka sodas at James Beach until
the glass fell from your hands and you hollowed
out your insides on the shore of the Pacific
You stumbled and laughed and told your roommate
with the tattoos how pretty she looked—
how much you loved her

When the singer with the long hair went down on one knee 
in the middle of a dirty Hollywood sidewalk 
you took him by the hands but you both knew he didn’t mean it
He had a daughter and he said he wished it all had happened with you
You said me too but you both knew you didn’t mean it
Bottles clanking in the sheets, you fell asleep 
with your legs wrapped around him at the Roosevelt hotel 
and left before morning to meet your boyfriend for breakfast

How you went to a party in Silverlake dressed as Twiggy 
in a canary yellow baby doll dress and Mary Janes
to embody someone other than yourself
How when your boyfriend and his friends got wasted 
you piled them all into his bone-white BMW
He slurred I love yous as you drove down the 101, 
marry me he said and you said you’re a mess
His best friend called you the devil from the backseat
and you thought maybe it was true

When you left Los Angeles and thought maybe 
things could be different, maybe you could be different
When you went to Hawaii with the artist with the perfect face
and held his sister’s newborn baby for an entire afternoon
How your body ached from the weight of it all 
When you watched her struggle to cover herself 
in the wet sun to breastfeed her son you said
the whole thing looks like a burden

How you went to Europe with the artist in the fall
and you sat in a Parisian cafe, sipping cognac, talking
about your dreams, your fathers, and what made a good song
How you stretched your arms into the smoke-filled night
and said this is enough, art is enough, we’re enough
How you trailed off and the statement turned into a question 
neither of you could answer—
It is, isn’t it?

When you holed yourself up in a 1940s house
in the Blue Ridge Mountains to write—
to find out where you came from, why it hurt
to love and be loved, and if it really was enough
You wrote a book that no one read 
and it left you with nothing of yourself 
to hold onto

When your brother had a daughter you said she’s perfect
How you held her in their sun-lit apartment in Michigan
you called her your magic girl and you felt happy, for him and for you
Then you told the artist with the perfect face I love you 
You meant it and he said it back but of course 
you already knew

How you said I want to have a baby 
and the words made your heart flicker and your hands shake
How the artist said he knew you’d change your mind
and you thought back to the department store in the Mojave,
your rigid confidence and the cool of his palm on your sweating neck
How the word mother still filled your mouth with salt 
but you swallowed it anyway
You said maybe things could be different—
maybe I could be different

/ AFTER

How you took three pregnancy tests after Thanksgiving 
and it finally made sense why you couldn’t keep your eyes open
When you told the artist in front of the Christmas tree 
he picked you up and his eyes filled with water
How you were both scared but you were happy

When you cried on the back porch on the Mother’s Day
before the baby was born, staring at the wine-colored irises
and telling the artist I can’t do this, I don’t know how
How you said you could never be a mother
When he said, you’re doing it, this is it,
don’t you see that you already are?

How your son came into the world through a severing
of your body, your being—you were split in two
When you heard his cry you knew you’d already let him down 
How you shook as you held him and you told him you were sorry
How he stilled and he quieted and showed you you’d been wrong
How you struggled to listen and how it hurt to trust
but for the first time in your life, you understood love
How you thought maybe things could be different,
maybe I could be different

When you abandoned your novel at eighty-thousand words
not because you wanted to, but because you questioned 
the worth of every word you wrote, every second 
you spent with your art instead of your baby 
How this was only the beginning of being pulled
between the worlds of writer and mother
When you asked, why can’t I be both? 
How you answered back you can, you are
but you still don’t know if you believe it

When you introduced him to your mother in the hospital 
and she held you both as you cried
When your father met him a month later 
and your son fell asleep in his giant hands
How you thought back to how they didn’t show up for you
but maybe they could show up for him
When you heard the artist with the perfect face
sing him lullabies in the dark, his voice an embrace
and you said we have everything need

How you held him against your body, night dissolving into day
How time could no longer tell you how to live or what to fear
When you walked by the lake in the warm summer rain
and you told your one-month-old son to notice—
to listen to the sound of the trees and the taste of the air
How you said this is the thing we have to do 
to find our way back to ourselves 

How he taught you how to shed the layers 
of self-doubt that had made a home in your bones 
When you found your way back to the writing 
How you wrote him letters about everything you know 
and everything you don’t and saved them in a book by your bedside
When you played him This Empty Northern Hemisphere on vinyl
you cried and you said see, this is what art can do if you let it

How you hiked the mountains that are always blue,
to waterfalls and ridge lines with his warm body against your chest
How you found an entire untouched universe 
all wrapped up in one tiny being—
the meaning of presence and the answers to the
questions you’ve been asking your entire life
How they were there all along but you
were too broken to see them

How motherhood has taught you to unclench your hands,
to let go and say this is no longer mine to carry
How it was never yours in the first place
When he said mama under the black walnut tree 
and you stopped waiting to be happy
When you said there is home, there is us, there is this, now 
How you kissed his berry-stained hands in the copper sun
and your ceaseless need to leave yourself settled to a comforting thrum 
How you found a holiness to this slow, unglamorous rhythm
When you said things are different now—
I am different
Photo by Mari Trancoso

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Jan
Writes The Pasta Bowl
May 16Liked by Jessy Easton

Read this Mother's Day evening, sitting beside my boy while he chatted and splashed in his bath. Maybe it's just the summer weather encroaching, or the inevitable losses that go with raising baby farm animals, or the fact that everything feels like it hits extra deep all day every day, but every time I open your latest essay I end up with tears in my eyes. You touch those intimate little details of what it is to meet and mother yourself as you mother your child, and I love coming here and recognizing what I already know in my own experience and having it rounded out with the perfect, unique elements of your own.

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Meg
Writes The Magic Bus
May 25Liked by Jessy Easton

You are such an epic writer. Your writing is so clear and crisp. I continue to find it so incredibly difficult to write about motherhood now 2.5 years later. I don’t know why. But when I sit down to write I find that there’s just too much, it’s overwhelming. You perfectly captured the profound pain & beauty of motherhood. Thank you for sharing yourself with us.

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