Domesticate me

Every spring, the all-girls school that I attended from ages nine through 18 held a 'women in power' day, during which women like Madeline Albright and Sandra Day O'Connor and Cokie Roberts came to speak to us about how to make a difference in the world.

The message was clear: you, a young girl-woman, have been given the gift of a tremendous education, and you have a duty to engage with the world and give back.

The subtext, as delivered by frontline feminists in broad shoulder pads and horrible shoes, (including many a closeted lesbian,) was a little harder to infer: something along the lines of get after it, but don't be too threatening. The glass ceiling was just overhead, and piercing it required the most delicate of dances.

My early feminist education was coupled with an odd, (but only if you're not from D.C.) partner: ballroom dance and etiquette classes, commencing at the tender age of ten, in which I was required to wear white gloves, learn the cha-cha, and figure out which fork was which. "Reel 'em in, boys," the teacher shouted as we danced to "Sea of Love." I really had no idea what he was talking about. But I didn't think I liked it.

Though I felt quite confused by the conflicting messages about my place in the world, I was clear on one thing: I knew I wanted nothing to do with the domestic. I wanted to get out - out of D.C. and into the unknown and exciting - as fast as possible. I viewed marriage and the domestic front with all its repetitious and thankless tasks as something that would just slow me down.

But I knew I wanted children. My mother always thought that I'd acquire them while traveling the globe, warning that children were not souvenirs.

And so we were perhaps equally surprised when on April 5th, 2004, after 38 hours of labor, Stella arrived, her first breath ushering in motherhood in all its technicolor, my-heart-is-now-inside-someone-else awe. With her came tiny clothes that I found surprising pleasure in washing and folding, and hours of bathing and dressing and nursing. Repetitious domestic activities that, it turned out, were as far from thankless as anything I'd ever done.

My compulsion for my work in the world did not fade in the slightest, but a new passion bloomed alongside.

Stella's arrival birthed a new potential for me: the possibility of staying put. I had always been running, even in some ways in my relationship with Chris, but with her, I knew I wasn't going anywhere. I settled in and began, as Tom Smith says, the most radical act of all: staying in one place.

In fact, a child is an endless stream of places, counted in hours, then days and months and finally, years, the familiarity of accumulated moments guiding you from one to the next delicious, unfolding mystery.

Happy birthday to my little teacher