A Mother’s Work

I have been working through an essay by Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass titled,” A Mother’s Work.” Inspired by this writing, I took my daughter to a nature-focused activity at a pumpkin patch. Despite the rain and mud, we had a sweet time hayriding through trees, getting lost in a corn maze, and picking a pumpkin. We carved the pumpkin, roasted the seeds, ate dinner as a family, and grounded in the joy of this fall-time ritual. 

I feel awe of the mother Kimmerer is and how lucky her daughters are to be raised by a nature-aware mama. Her essay, “A Mother’s Work,” speaks to the project of making a muddy-watered pond swimmable for her daughters. In this process, Kimmerer speaks to the abundance of creatures present and gives recognition to the many mothers that exist in nature. While cutting back willow, she comes upon a nest of eggs with its mother nearby keeping watch. Kimmerer reconciles with the realities of taking from another’s home to strengthen her own. I cannot help but to observe this very phenomenon in my own neighborhood as trees are replaced with houses.  

She combs the pond of algae and all its accompanied life, and extends a metaphor to mothering. We can spend days cleaning our kitchen only to have it dirtied within hours by our littles. This may be frustrating, but it represents a kitchen full of life; a pond in its natural state is teeming with plants and critters that cohabitate it. A sterile kitchen is a pond void of creatures and critters; it is life that fills these spaces. There is finiteness to mothering and Kimmerer’s story speaks to this. She finishes the creation of the pond just as her daughters leave home for college. 

The writing explores how mothering evolves and expands outwardly. First you are a mother to your baby, then that sense of mother’s work is exercised in the world and community. We mother each other, our neighborhoods, our land, and our social and collective fabrics.

As the season is changing, I'm inspired to return to the bits of homesteading I have space for, specifically in ways I can share with my daughter– like through cooking and gardening. The reality of my life is that I have prioritized my career in order to provide, so I don’t always  have the wherewithal to make every meal from scratch.

I also feel a longing to reconnect to the practices of natural medicine, the aspects of my work that focus on the grounding and holistic. And when I feel this longing, I also feel the hard reality of limitation– though I love my practice and community in the aesthetics world, I long to do it all. This longing, too, feels very motherly. 

I read this one chapter from Kimmerer three times over the last two weeks, and I’m in awe of how impactful sitting with one small bit of literature can be. I am walking around with a full heart and an inspiration to reconnect to my purpose as a mother and as a person in reciprocity with the earth. 

May we all keep reading.

With Love,
Heather