how are we doing with those idyllic slow 90s mom no bake fresh-faced analog summer camp endless summer dreams?
i jest, but if we aren’t intentional about the way we spend these short summer months interrupted by unbearable heat waves, explosive diarrhea, and smoke so thick we can’t go outside, then we’ll just never have any fun, will we?
last week was a truly an end-of-the-world time to try and throw a garden party, but somehow the smoke from the wildfires in Canada lifted long enough that i felt confident to carry on. we enjoyed a lovely outdoor party, but as soon as we came inside to clean up the sepia-toned smog rolled back in. what the actual fuck. creepy deepy stuff.1
nevertheless, we persisted.
aperol spritzes were consumed, a delightful array of spindrift cocktails and NA wine, shrimp cocktail, so much rhode island bakery pizza (think tomato pie for my jersey folks out there), and ice cream drumsticks doled out at the end.
i, of course, had to nix the orange slice garnishes, the crudité and any hope of an herby salad so as not to inflict the fear of explosive diarrhea onto my lovely guests.2
this was my second girl party of the summer. my first party was intimate, dinner with my closest people here, buoyed by two of my besties from the city. i invited three pairs of friends so that everyone had someone, i figured it might be less daunting with a pal.
out of seven people, six (!!) of us were moms. i could cry. i try to be chill about the fact that i have very few mom friends in the city, my amazing childfree friends leave me wanting for very little, but wow it is such a gift to have mom friends in rhode island.
hosting a group of moms was so relaxing.
my house was not pristine and i knew that would be a factor that connected us instead of leaving me feeling markedly different from my childfree buds. the before and after effects of having a child have left stretch marks on my home by way of toys strewn across the floor, yogurt caked onto chair legs and a hot wheels training potty that sits in the corner of my living room.
in june i took off from hosting because my hormones were acting like an alien invasion on my psyche. what little energy i had i wanted to pour into celebrating my best friend and traveling for a week in spain.
which brings me to the remainder of my summer goals:
1. bring girl party to rhode island
check, check, check.
2. open the garden and finish interior decorating
we bought this house fall 2024 and moved in with a blow up mattress and a pack and play. the first matter of business was painting and buying furniture and then we started decorating.
we are city kids. we’ve never owned a home before. we’ve never decorated a space that’s ours and we’ve certainly never had this much space (read: our house is not large).
we wanted it to look cohesive without looking like it fell out of a pottery barn catalog and we wanted a lot of character for our hundred year old home. thankfully my husband has never met an antique store he doesn’t love.
we dragged our feet about the cost of hiring an interior designer, but ultimately couldn’t have done it without one. Lily is our guide, our couples counselor, and our friend. what started as a daunting project that i thought would never be completed has turned into a home that looks and feels like us.
there are still a few things that need to go up on the walls, curtains to be hung, and pieces of art that will be acquired over time and future trips to brimfield. but in eight years of living together we own our first coffee table, we’ve replaced lighting fixtures, and we own a tv console that isn’t a last minute fix from wayfair.
our home integrates our toddler and giant bernedoodle into the space instead of considering them as an afterthought. our kid’s toys are stored beautifully and out of sight (in my beloved tv console) and our home feels cozy, grown up and intentionally us.
this project requires time, money, emotional buy-in and a fuckton of installing and organizing. it’s a heavy lift, but i am so glad we’re doing it because our home is completely transformed from the beautiful bare bones we moved into. Lily makes it so much less daunting and even fun.
3. potty training
confirming that my son could happily sit in his shit all day! fuck me. we may need to do one of those hellish 3 day programs. send prayers and tips.
4. learn to golf
i frankly don’t understand why my husband has always wanted me to play golf. i think most husbands are happy enough to have a wife who encourages them to go out and do their own thing for eight hours with the boys on a weekend, but what can i say, my guy loves me.
i swore i’d never play until we had a kid who is obsessed with golf. he’s not even three and i’ve already spent years hunched over fisher price clubs in the backyard, of course i’d learn to play for him.
so here i am, in my cutie pie golf outfits trying to learn the rules of the game, how to navigate the course, and how to swing a club. i love being a beginner. i love learning new things, and so far golf feels like a puzzle that you solve with your body. i’m addicted.
this is my second week of golf camp, technically they call it “clinic” but that sounds far too sterile for me, and i am loving it. who knew being a county club mom could be so cute.
now we have a sport that our whole family can enjoy.
this past weekend i got to get out on the course with my dudes, complete a few holes, and then have dinner and watch the sunset over the water. what could be better?
5. go to the beach as often as possible
the first couple of summers were a bit challenging to take a baby to the beach, but i can confirm that this age is the best yet. i’m taking beach naps, enjoying weekday beach dates with one of my friends and her son, and my kid just got his first boogie board.
water safety will always be the top concern, but it’s amazing to see how much more confident my kid is in the water thanks to his weekly swim classes.
6. novel writing prep for fall
this last one is so funny because the narrative is urging us to stay present in this fleeting summer moment and YES, AND. i have been dreaming about this book for over a year. i simply have not had enough access to my brain to go after a much larger project.
there is always so much writing that happens before fingertips hit the keys and i’ve been in that space.
not for nothing, we weren’t planning to put our kid into school yet, but he got into a Mamdani 3K program and we really can’t say no to our mayor and savior! this means my kid will be going to school five days a week this fall, but more on my identity crisis later.
i have a sticky note at the forefront of my mind that says “SCHOOL IS NOT A FORTY HOUR WORK WEEK” so that i’m (hopefully) reminded not to crush my spirit with unrealistic, larger than life, expectations. let’s circle back in Q3.
while i’m grappling with the “can i even call myself a full time mom anymore?” of it all, i’ve also realized that the narrative has already shifted. i stopped leading with Mom and began introducing myself as Writer this past spring. while my days, brain space and heart are fully consumed by the endless execution and logistics of childcare and my love for my kid, Mom has not been my primary title for a while.
i am so excited for my kid to go to school. for me, for him, for the hope and a prayer of finally maybe meeting some other parents who aren’t my two amazing friends who live in my neighborhood and also have the freedom to get coffee and go to the playground at nine am on a weekday.
inspiration is not a given!
there is a well of untapped energy that burst open after i spent a couple of weeks in identity crisis and grieving my days with my child (i reserve the right to revisit this crash out as often as needed, thank you very much!), but for now i am simply excited.
yes, summer is short, but that is the beauty of it. that’s why we love it so much. to me, contrast makes life interesting, juicier, luscious. give me all of the weather so that i can bitch about it with everyone else sopping wet on the subway platform, the monotony of LA is my personal hell. get out of here with your oppressive 365 days of sun interrupted only by 30 days of grey in june. no thank you.
i digress.
after a couple of months of feeling like a teenager trapped in an adult’s body i finally have energy again. i am invigorated and inspired and any artist can tell you that’s not something you can manufacture, when it’s there you gotta MOVE and take advantage.
“Between writing sessions, the wheels turn, and when I hit the page the words unload themselves. Then I head to a bar for a solo dinner, come back to watch a movie, take a bath, and repeat.”
so here i am, re-jiggering the way that i move through the world before my baby goes off to school. i’m preening my to-do lists and having open conversations with my creative support team about my book and the interviews i want to conduct.
on susbtack i’ve turned on paid subscriptions, but am giving myself time to consider what is offered for your investment and how. THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY BECOME MY BELOVED PAID SUBSCRIBERS, i truly have no words for my deep gratitude and what your $36 of trust is doing to my brain!!
i’m working with friends to help me bring this community to the next level, and paid subscribers will have a little something-something coming in the mail this fall.
i’m luxuriating in long mornings with my whole family in bed, giant bernedoodle included. i’m saying yes and texting friends for last minute hangs with and without our kids. i’m calling my parents for whom our summers in rhode island mean theirs without their grandson.
i’m delighted, i’m relieved, i’m PMSing and i don’t feel like the world is ending. i am continuing to take a lot of risks this summer and whether or not they work out, the pursuit feels good and meaningful. that’s about all you can ask for.
summer risks worth taking
so whatever risk looks like for you, i hope you take it.
i hope you reach out to that new friend. i hope you blow off a day of work to go on an adventure. i hope you write the thing that’s been nagging at the back of your mind. and i hope you tell that friend when they accidentally hurt your feelings.
i hope you aren’t too cool to enjoy whatever weird random thing lights you up. and i hope you take some time to reflect on how your summer is going so far and how you’d like to indulge in the rest of it.
i’ll leave you with one of my favorite summer images, from one of my favorite writers, enjoying my favorite fruit.
“You’d like me at the beach. You’d like how I bite into a nectarine and don’t complain once about the stick between my fingers. You’d like how I flop down on my towel and don’t mind how it wrinkles a bit and that I get sand all on the corners, even though I’d rather not have sand all on the corners. But I still don’t mind, at the beach, about the sand on my towel, and I think you’d like that. You’d like how I go right in the water, walk right to the surf and don’t flinch at the cold, even though I could, flinch, but I don’t. How I head for the crest of a wave and dive under even if the water is shallow. How I swim, really swim, and stay in as long as I promised my child-self that I would. I do think about getting out more than I’d like, but I don’t. I stay. I swim. You’d like that about me at the beach. You’d like how i’m different when I peel off the city from my skin, how you can see the way I was once, a long time ago, before being silly was the hardest thing for me to be. It’s still hard, but not at the beach, with my friends, at the beach with my friends it isn’t hard.”
HAPPY SUMMERING, I LOVE YOU.
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my top three recommended reads of the week featuring mothers getting curious about what it looks like to challenge the status quo.
Shira Hoffman getting curious about the desire to grow a family and the realities of life that make it difficult to decide. i was deeply moved by this article. Shira somehow finds glimpses of dark humor amidst this shadowy unknown and i really appreciate how transparent she is with the details of her life in this one. due to the personal nature of this post, this article is only available for free for a limited time so i recommend clicking over today!
Meg Gold getting curious about our culture’s overuse of the term “imposter syndrome” and how we can rethink the discomfort as proof of trying something new. i love love love loveee this reframe. i think it applies professionally as well as to new parenthood, this steep learning curve of finding your own way. of course it’s uncomfortable. what if we didn’t think of this feeling as a problem to be solved, but rather proof that you’re moving forward?
Dr. Heather England getting curious about why childhood wounds still affect you in midlife. i stumbled across this post at a time when i was ready to find some more compassion for my own parents. when i was ready to fell some old walls i’d built up during the tough years of adolescence. one of the most rewarding parts of becoming a parent is finding new levels of love and respect for our own. this article really cracked something open in me.
CONNECT: thank you so much for being here! i hope you enjoyed reading mother curious today. i’d love to hear from you! say hi to me on instagram, watch me try to figure out tiktok, or leave a comment on substack. the best part about substack is the conversations and connections we build together and i look forward to getting to know you too.
dark humor is getting me through my anxiety. otherwise my (totally fucking reasonable) climate crisis fears will eat me alive and cause me never to get out of bed!!
i guess now we know it’s a lettuce thing, but there were a lot of moms present (new and wonderful to me!) and we tend to be hyper-vigilant about these things. can you imagine trying to parent from the toilet for weeks? me neither.
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