Goodbye (for now)

time to have a baby

Hi friends,

This will be the last newsletter you receive from me for a while, as I’m now full term and due to give birth within the next few weeks. For the past couple of days I’ve been trying to come up with something profound or insightful to say about my second pregnancy, but it seems the last of my brain function has finally left the building, along with my pelvic floor and ability to get out of bed.

This past weekend I was at Greenbelt festival chairing a conversation between the economist Kate Raworth, theologian Brian McClaren and musician Leyla McCalla. As their discussion roamed around the place, touching on all manner of subjects, I could feel the gears of my brain struggling to keep up. I felt utterly frustrated by this perceived inadequacy – feelings that surfaced frequently during my first pregnancy two years ago, where I tried (and failed) to maintain my usual level of work and mental acuity, lest I somehow be perceived as ‘letting the side down’. In her book Matrescence, Lucy Jones describes similar feelings;

‘As I began to interrogate my attitude towards motherhood, I was shocked; I saw that I had perceived it as mindless and unintellectual, of low worth and of low value, dull, nothing to write home about.’

I guess one takeaway I have from this pregnancy is the realisation that this belief is utter nonsense. Understandable nonsense, but nonsense nonetheless. It’s the nonsense little girls are fed relentlessly since childhood, the idea that motherhood and birthing labour are somehow ‘less than’ activities. Naturally I fell for this narrative hook, line and sinker.

But as Jones goes onto explain - the physical changes are only half of the story. My brain is currently in the process of being rewired! Last time round this led both to a period of post-partum depression, but also into one of the most creative and fulfilling periods of my life. Creativity that led to the emergence of The Murmuration. This experience is not one that is easy to quantify, or even describe, but it is utterly beautiful and inevitable; resistance is futile.

All this to say, I’ll be taking some time out from The Murmuration for the next few months – to spend time with my baby and allow my brain to rewire itself without any extra pressure to write essays every other week. I’m hoping this will also afford me some time to think about the future of this newsletter and return with some fresh ideas for its output.

That said, I’ve arranged for some guest contributors to share some of their writing with you in my place. I’ve loved editing their essays and know you will enjoy them! The first of these will be from the brilliant memoirist

Tanya Frank

, reflecting on her Jewish identity and the recent far-right riots. Tan is the author of Zig-Zag Boy: Motherhood, Madness and Letting Go, which I had the pleasure of editing.

I’ve also decided to pause payments for any paid subscribers during this time, and will let you know when these are turned back on again. (If you are a paid subscriber click here for more details).

For now, please know that writing for The Murmuration is quite simply my favourite thing to do. Thank you for all your support, comments and encouragement over the past eighteen months. I can’t wait to introduce a new reader to you when the time is right!

Love,

Grace

P.S. Don’t forget there’s a wealth of essays available in the archive if you get desperate :)