Hi!
If you’re reading this, you’re a subscriber to pergola, the Substack newsletter I started in 2020.
I stopped writing in 2022, when I was pregnant. You can read my last piece here:
My brain worked differently while I was pregnant. All of the mental associations that I’d always relied on, and delighted in, stopped. The sweeping mind’s eye landscapes that used to wash over me, or that I could conjure if I pushed myself to write, disappeared. Pregnancy pulled the curtains on the cinema of my mind. I had no interiority to watch, and thus nothing to offer.
My son is now two. Slowly, the scaffolding of my mind has reconstituted itself. It took much longer than I thought, and I won’t dare say the process is done, or that the shape hasn’t shifted significantly. But really, the issue is now space. It’s tempting to say the issue is time - time away from yoghurt smeared on the underside of a chair, smushed floor cheese, and tiny arms resisting sleeves - and that is a major factor. But the real roadblock is space - reflexive space. Working from home in a rural community with no external childcare means there are very few, if any, opportunities to reflect, or even gain physical or energetic space. I’m always in the film, never in the audience.
All that said, I’m reviving this newsletter. If you want to come along for this new journey, that’s fantastic news. If you’d rather bow out, absolutely do so! 2020 was a long time ago. So much has changed. We all need to streamline, in whatever way is clarifying for us.
I’ll be launching a series on motherhood. It won’t be all motherhood forever. I also have my eye on a series about spaces, and friendship, and we’ll see after that.
Thank you for being here. I hope you’re well.
Dominique
Great news - I can’t wait! ❤️
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