Craft Like a Mother
Cannot wait for this weekend. #girlsweekend #craftlikeamother
That’s what her Facebook post said.
I’m sitting in a semi circle of women. We’re doing that thing that women do, for as long as there has been language to do it. We’re chatting. Kids. Husbands. Bus routes. Peanut allergies.
Also we’re crafting. Quilts. Scrapbooks. Crocheted afghans. It’s what women do. We sit in a circle, we make something, we pass the time by reveling in the privacy that being productive can give us.
We’re at a church camp. Not that it’s terribly religious, and neither am I. It just happens to be the summer camp that a university friend went to, and worked for, and met her husband at. It’s not my camp, but she’s my friend. We don’t see each other much, not since she left the city, not since she had three kids. So when she said she and a bunch of her girlfriends were going up to craft for the weekend, I jumped at the chance to see her.
Her girlfriends are like her. Mid-30s, moms of two to four kids. They’re all excited to get away for a weekend.They joke about their children starving to death if their husbands don’t find the instructions on the box of frozen lasagna. I take up a spot on the couch, with my yarn and crochet hook, and let their conversation roll over me, looking for a chance to jump in.
I’m crafting like a mother.
Except I’m not one.
Admitting I don’t have kids when someone asks feels like I’ve put my finger on my nose and shouted “not it!” before anyone has announced the game. Telling one or two of them quietly that my husband and I are trying to adopt feels less awkward. Once they’ve asked the usual questions about process and waiting times though, the conversation steers back pretty quickly to highland dance lessons and in-laws who don’t understand the complexities of modern childcare.
I fall silent, focus on my stitches. I don’t have much to contribute. I understand the demands of motherhood in an academic way, the same way I think I understand how to make a closing argument in a courtroom after three decades of TV dramas. Academically, I know kids take a lot of time, and that kids don’t thank you for your time. I know the time this weekend offers is precious to these mothers.
I’ve got tons of time. Sleeping in on a weekend is a given for me. I grumble that breakfast at craft camp is served at 8 am. One of the moms says her kids never sleep past 6. There are a lot of sympathetic nods. I feel like Marie Antoinette asking for more cake. I’m not sure how to tell them that I have been trying to give up my free time for years. So far, it hasn’t worked out.
To keep busy, I’ve crafted like a mother. I’ve taken up crochet and photography. This summer, I made two kinds of jam and pickled three kinds of vegetables. I spent 12 uninterrupted hours making tomato sauce on a holiday weekend, then spent most of the next day lying on the couch since there aren’t any little voices asking if we can go to the park. This year, I wrote the first draft of a novel in just over four months. It takes a lot of work to fill the space when you don’t have little people living in your house, demanding snacks and then announcing they don’t like what you’ve served.
I know they’re just venting, these mothers. I know they love their kids and their husbands and the lives they’re leading. But this weekend has shown me how consuming those lives are, in a way that’s completely different from how I’ve crafted mine. They’re crafting like mothers for 48 hours, because after that it will only happen in fits and spurts. After work, after dinner, after homework and laundry and storytime and bedtime, and then only if there’s enough energy to do anything besides look for something new on Netflix.
I’ll be finished my crochet project by Christmas. They may still be working on the same quilt next fall. I hope they know there’s something to be envied in that. We’re all crafting like mothers, but some of us are just pretending for the weekend.
