Where wanting comes from

On having appetites

I’ve written about ambition before, in a prior newsletter. How it surprised me, that it remained even after I had children. Rather than treating work as a clock-in/clock-out position once I had a baby, I found myself doubling down. Attending women’s leadership conferences when I had a baby fresh enough that I had to reach out to these various schools and ask for a place to pump (always an adventure that year was—I pumped in CFO’s offices, athletics closets, the Boston Museum of Fine Art).

(I liked finding all the mothers in the museum on that visit, and all the witch-adjacent art. These things are connected. Motherhood is of course, part witchcraft)

While my continuing to work was of course, a financial decision, remaining this active in the workforce, continuing to push forward, has been a philosophical one as well. Since having the kids, I’ve added several roles at my school, continued to present and apply to conferences, etc.

The way it made sense, and continues to make sense to me, is that if I’m away from my kids for these hours in the day (and now we’re coming up on the time when they’d be in school, anyway), I want to make those hours count. I want other people to know that I’m caring for their children to the best of my ability and more selfishly, I want to feel like my work is making some impact on the world.

Ambition is a funny thing when you’re an artist with a day job. In some ways, the true artist ambition would be to shirk the day job, double down on the commitment to your form, make money by creation. I greatly admire people who are doing this, who are able to do this, in a world that seems hostile to creatives in many ways. Maybe the truest path is to earn money through art alone.

But that has never been my path. And in that way, my ambition has had to be split. This past week, I was turned down for a different role at work, and my reaction to it was a bit odd. For a few hours I thought I had gotten it, and instead of feeling excited, I felt something akin to dread. What had I done? I have a pretty well-balanced life, making room for creating in addition to work and my family.

Well, the good news is, the dread didn’t have to last, because I didn’t get the job in the end.

There are hard limits to my work ambition, one of which is that I love my ten month schedule and the time it affords me to be with my kids at a time when they want to be around me. I love my current school and how they understand who I am as a person and let me create and live within that framework. So why is there always this undercurrent of wanting?

I remember a couple of years ago, I was having a conversation with my then-head of school about ambition, about being a woman who wants things. I think I was sort of lamenting that I had drawn a very good lot in life, with a career and a family I love, in the best state on the planet, and yet I still found myself plagued by this need, this drive, to write a book, to publish it, to have my thoughts and feelings committed to the record and acknowledged by this system that bedevils so much of us.

She encouraged me to reframe the wanting as a gift. That it can give you the makings to withstand the inevitable no’s, the setbacks. That inner drive, that want, that light, keeps us waking up early to write, keeps us saying yes to things on an already full plate. It is probably what got me across a marathon finish line, and what made me open a blank document this past time and say “this time will be different”. It’s what got me two incredible kids who enrich my life far beyond work and the blinking cursor.

I think where it gets sticky is when the ambition blinds us, or robs us of gratitude for what we do have, for the current moment, for where we are now. And that’s probably where women can fall into the trap, the one that one of my agent’s other clients wrote about this week in her own substack. We’re supposed to appear gobsmacked at our own success, supposed to act like “aw shucks, who me?” when we’ve been making moves for one, five, ten years to lead up to our eventual success. And while I acknowledge that publishing does include luck, without the hard work, the luck is useless.

I am very grateful for where I am, while also acknowledging that I’ve got that dog in me, and there are certain benchmarks that must be met before the dog can lay its head down (this was also Joy’s metaphor, giving credit where credit is due). I can enjoy this moment, this life, while also honoring the still small voice that wants more. And I can acknowledge the ambition when it comes, as well as the midlife inclination towards rest.

In the past week I have witnessed someone reach a goal years in the making, and it has inspired me to double down, to make sure I’m carving out the time and energy for writing this summer. I also reread the article I published in the NYT years ago which includes the line “This is what it feels like to get what you want”.

I have had that feeling before, I still have that feeling now, and I will have it again in other forms. Just gotta keep moving, keep working towards things, while simultaneously not wishing away the time of magic going on with the boys at their ages now. I think I am generally successful at this, but as with many things (all things?) I am a work in progress.

What I ate this week:

Didn’t cook many new dinners, but did debut a new salad at the boys birthday party:

Essentially, romaine hearts, feta, dill, scallions, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. A quality salad!

Currently reading:

I can’t believe how under the radar this book is flying, because to me it should be way more in cultural conversation. To lazily summarize, think Tuck Everlasting for adults. But the Catskills setting is so vibrant, the questions of mortality and what to do with a life so well drawn, I kept getting pulled back in and wanting to see how it would end. And wow, did she stick the landing. The author is Jon Scieszka’s daughter (he of Stinky Cheese Man and Other Tales fame) and she owns a hotel in the Catskills that hosts writing retreats, so I have a new dream destination. Read it so I can discuss!!

Novel progress: Hit about 19k words this week. Tweaking and noodling and then sending to my agent for a gut check before I move forward.