Motherhood has often been considered a pinnacle of wisdom and serenity, a sort of joining together of all those parts of ourselves that were supposedly, until this point, in lesser focus. But in truth, more often than not, motherhood opens more doors than it closes. It is an endless series of complications and ambiguities that are put into sharper relief by the arrival of a daughter.
What emerges from the following four stories is this precise push and pull, that aforementioned ambiguity, pondered through the lens of devotion and loss, of privilege and resentment, of injustice and forgiveness. More so than the way they were raised or the choices they make, the way these women approach that ambiguity often sets the tone for the kind of mothers they are, were, or could be. These stories do not seek the closure at the end of that long string of questioning: rather, they acknowledge that sailing the tricky waters of life with a daughter is a series of half-certainties that aren’t meant to be answered, but merely re-asked, and re-examined over and over again, until it makes or breaks you.
Act 1: "Miscarriages of Social Justice," by Kelly A. Dorgan and read by Candy Bryant. Published in The Nasiona, 20 December 2018.
Act 2: "About Chains," written and read by Holly Pelesky. Published in The Nasiona, 10 January 2019.
Act 3: "Diptych: Origins, Neurodivergence," by Deborah Elderhorst and read by Jo Weston. Published in The Nasiona, 13 February 2019.
Act 4: "Wedding Portrait," by Jennifer Bostwick Owens and read by Monique Shutt. Published in The Nasiona, 22 January 2019.
