{"id":970,"date":"2022-03-03T16:09:52","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T16:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/english\/?p=970"},"modified":"2022-03-03T16:10:43","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T16:10:43","slug":"memoir-and-motherhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/english\/memoir-and-motherhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Memoir and Motherhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meghan Flaherty, Associate Lecturer on A215, has recently been awarded a Scottish Book Trust Ignite Fellowship<\/a>. The fellowship offers talented professional authors practical and financial support for exploring new avenues or making new breakthroughs. Meghan will be working on her second book, a memoir about motherhood, memory, and the self \u2013 the stories we tell each other in order to live and how those narratives define us. We asked her to tell us about juggling her roles as mother, writer and OU tutor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Motherhood is hard. It\u2019s even harder (I tell myself) when your children are small and the world has gone haywire. The pandemic has forced so many of us to juggle so much, and in such claustrophobic space. How can you possibly be a person, a writer, a mother, a pre-school teacher, a playmate, a chef, a maid, a student, a professional and<\/em> keep your family safe and healthy all at once? (Not to mention keeping up with all the latest parenting advice on Instagram\u2014and falling ever short.)<\/p>\n

I say this and I\u2019ve had it easy. My family has weathered its particular challenges, but we\u2019ve managed to tread water for the past two years. In all of the uncertainty, we\u2019ve never feared for a roof over our heads, and despite a few nursery colds (when nursery is open) and the persistent stress, we\u2019ve managed to fend off harm. We\u2019re lucky. My husband and I have jobs that don\u2019t require us to leave the house in lockdowns. Our kids are young enough to not mourn what they have lost in this new normal. (And young enough, thank heaven, not to require help with any maths homework.) We are not high risk (in any category), and so we\u2019ve managed fine, despite the occasional storm clouds of depression and that niggling, insurmountable anxiety, the fatigue of functioning in so much flux.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Tango Lessons: A memoir<\/em> by Meghan Flaherty<\/p><\/div>\n

What I haven\u2019t managed to do (apart from keeping my skirting boards clean and being perfectly patient with my children) is write. I sit here typing this beside a pile of pages\u2014the mess of which I hope to call my second book. This lump of untouched draft, this tome<\/em> of half-baked words, is the albatross of my pandemic, of my past five years. Granted, during that time, I also had two children under two (both of them nutters), moved across the world, and lost a beloved parent to leukemia. (Not to mention: made it through the Trump administration.) I\u2019ve had my share of good excuses.<\/p>\n

My kids came first. Then lockdowns. Then the move. More lockdown. Toilet training. The purchase of our first house. Another move. My husband\u2019s thyroid surgery. Working to pay the bills. Grieving. More bills. When was there time to sit down at my desk and do art? And if I\u2019d found the time, where was the energy? The inspiration (from the Latin \u2018in\u2019\/\u2018spirare\u2019, to inhale, to breathe in)?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve recently been given the gift of an Ignite Fellowship from the Scottish Book Trust<\/a>, which includes a much-appreciated bursary, the promise of a week\u2019s retreat (!!!), and mentorship, but above all else: a vote of confidence. Someone outside of my house, my head, telling me to put my bottom in my chair and get this done. A reason to pick up this doorstop on my desk and make a book of it. Even when I think I\u2019m too exhausted to access the part of me that writes. The part I\u2019ve shaded over with these other roles, back-burnered and forgotten. You\u2019ll understand why I fumble here for words; my gratitude feels inexpressible.<\/p>\n

Since I started teaching at the OU, I\u2019ve been so impressed by the tenacity of my students. Most of whom, I note, are juggling so much more than I. That they manage to keep pace against the current of this pandemic, managing their own families and jobs and stresses, their own mental health and learning challenges, to pursue their degrees (and churn out stories, essays, poems) is remarkable. As I steer them through their module this year, I hope to channel some of their resolve and pluck.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Meghan Flaherty<\/p><\/div>\n

Meghan Flaherty<\/a> (who teaches at the OU under the name Meghan Maguire) is the author of\u00a0Tango Lessons<\/em><\/a>. She\u00a0has an M.F.A. from Columbia University<\/a>. Her essays and translations have appeared in\u00a0O<\/em>,\u00a0The Oprah Magazine<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0The Iowa Review<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Psychology Today<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0Parents<\/em><\/a>, and online at the\u00a0New York Times<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em><\/a>, and elsewhere. Her essay ‘Ode to Gray<\/a>‘\u00a0was included among the notable mentions in 2019\u2019s\u00a0Best American Essays<\/em><\/a>. She is an Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Open University<\/a>, and teaches also at the University of Glasgow<\/a> and Catapult.co<\/a> in NYC. She lives in Scotland with her partner and their two wee boys.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meghan Flaherty, Associate Lecturer on A215, has recently been awarded a Scottish Book Trust Ignite Fellowship. The fellowship offers talented professional authors practical and financial support for exploring new avenues or making new breakthroughs. Meghan will be working on her … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[188,187,201,203,192,27,190,185,186,198,193,200,100,197,196,189,191,195,194,199,202],"class_list":["post-970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-writing","tag-a215","tag-associate-lecturer","tag-best-american-essays","tag-catapult-com","tag-columbia-university","tag-creative-writing","tag-ignite-fellowship","tag-meghan-flaherty","tag-meghan-maguire","tag-new-york-times","tag-o","tag-ode-to-gray","tag-open-university","tag-parents","tag-psychology-today","tag-scottish-book-trust","tag-tango-lessons","tag-the-iowa-review","tag-the-oprah-magazine","tag-the-paris-review","tag-university-of-glasgow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":976,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions\/976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}