Writing Motherhood
Tapping Into Your Creativity as a Mother and a Writer
Introduction
THE BIRTH OF WRITING MOTHERHOOD
The day I left the maternity ward at New York Hospital and came home to my apartment on Eighty-fifth Street and West End Avenue, I drew down the blinds, crawled into bed, and hid under the covers with my newborn baby. We stayed there for two weeks. The overhead light was too bright, the street noise too loud, and the kitchen smells from neighboring apartments too strong. Shadowy figures came and went, walking on tiptoe, talking in whispers, as I sat propped up on pillows, my newborn at my breast, a La Leche coach at my side. I could not breast-feed my baby, much less change a diaper the size of a cocktail napkin or clip fingernails that curled under like cellophane. The last time I had felt so disoriented and alienated was the day I turned twenty-one and landed in New Delhi, India. The doctors called my condition postpartum depression. I knew better. I was in culture shock.
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