The Motherhood Time Machine
I wanted to become a mother for as long as I remember wanting anything at all. Of course, Thor’s mighty hammer had nothing on the one indoctrinating Venezuelan girls into motherhood back in the 80s. Every relative, teacher, show, and commercial pushed us to become mothers. There was only one acceptable question when it came to motherhood, and that was how many kids you wanted.
I wasn’t the most indoctrinatable of kids. I had no interest in high-heels or in wearing makeup every day (that, too, was to be a Venezuelan girl’s future). But I was down with having kids. Not down, actually. Downright eager. Weeks—possibly days—after Nate and I met 25 years ago, we picked our future children’s names: Isabelle and Aram. We got married the summer after our college graduation and we had enough sense to know that a philosophy major (me) and an English/German double major (Nate) had no chance of making enough money to support children right away. Not to mention we wanted to travel, go to grad school, have our share of adventures. For ten years, Isabelle and Aram waited—patient, imaginary beings with indistinct features and delightful personalities.
I was 33 when we bought the prenatal vitamins and 34 when we found out Isabelle was going to be a boy. By then, Nate’s brother Jeff had tattooed the name Aram on his arm. It was his and Nate’s grandfather’s name, so we figured Aram belonged to Jeff—and years later, he did give the name to his wonderful first son. But back in 2011, Isabelle became William, and when William was born, he was indeed delightful and more beautiful than our imagination could have conjured (and again, I’d been imagining for a long time).
Two years later, I got pregnant again, but Isabelle decided she wouldn’t join our family after all. Instead, Santiago was born. He too was more beautiful than we could have imagined, and he put his own spin on delightful. It occurred to me that the quirks I’d thought all babies shared were actually William’s quirks. Santiago was very different from his brother, wasn’t he? He seemed to be, but it was hard to pinpoint exactly how. Between the years of interrupted sleep and so much of my mental, physical, and emotional energy going to the boys, my memory had taken a hit.
Enter the home videos I’d taken of the two of them since they were born. At some point in Santiago’s first months in the world, I began to edit footage of them side by side on Final Cut Pro. I could finally see both boys doing the same things but putting their own spin on them. That experiment turned into William and Santiago Simultaneous, my five-minute documentary about the ephemeral babyhood and enduring personalities of the two beings who graced Nate and me with their existences:
I have no idea what I thought motherhood would be like back when I was a three-year-old wearing a matching nightgown with her favorite (and, unlike me, very blond and blue-eyed) doll. Still, I’m sure that girl would be thrilled to meet the children she ended up bringing into the world—regardless of what their names and genders turned out to be.
Unearthed Photo
A few hours after Santiago was born, William came to meet his brother. They would soon begin to build the intricate world of games, humor, objects, and memories that houses their relationship—a world that keeps growing to this day and that I hope they’ll continue to inhabit as adulthood pulls them away from their across-the-hallway bedrooms. In this photo, though, William looks spooked by the tiny, ravenous being attached to his mother (and as I write this, I’m spooked by how matted my hair is after many hours in labor).
William peeks from the side of the bed—pensive and serious as he makes sense of this weird new reality with that analytical brain of his. Santiago, his skin red from his journey out of my body, is also trying to process how he got here. And I, matted hair or not, am happy and in love with it all. The babies, the man I made the babies with (who’s taking the photo), and our future—unknown yet vast and populated by humans I can’t wait to wake up to morning after morning for a long time.
Stories that Transfixed Me (and May Transfix You)
Every spring Emily Henry takes over my Kindle (and the number 1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller list) with a new tale of women looking for love—romantic, familial, professional. Her protagonists look for it and they get it, but the path is never easy—the difficulties making it more rewarding for her readers. More importantly, Emily pours a whole world of insight into human frailty and our need to connect—deeply, completely, even when it feels like our carefully constructed barriers will melt as we hold on to each other. Every year, spring flowers bloom in my neighborhood, and so do Emily’s characters, and Daphne Vincent blooms in exactly the way we need in 2024. Daphne and her love interest Miles take us along an enlightening and profound, yet fun trip as they learn how to love each other and themselves while sauntering down the picturesque coast of Lake Michigan.
Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach
Most of us remember being kids and idolizing someone a little older than we were. Not decades older but closer to us in age. Someone just ahead of us and thus more relatable in the stories, dramas, and joys they experienced. Most of us (luckily) didn’t have to deal with our hero losing their lives, as happens to Sally Holt, the wise, witty, and wounded narrator of Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance. Sally spends the beginning of the book in awe of her older sister Kathy, and the rest of it coming to terms with her passing as she honors Kathy’s memory without betraying the woman Sally herself was meant to be.
Copyedited by Natalie Cohen