I clearly remember the days that I spent reading The Divided Heart for the first time. Che had a serious fever so I lay with him in bed, breastfeeding on demand, flicking through the pages of Rachel Power's book when I wasn't comforting him. It was a fair few years ago now but the message imbued within its pages still resonates with me.
"The divided heart; a split self; the sense that to succeed at one is to fail at the other."
Motherhood for me has been a series of successes and failures. Indeed, you can't have one without the other. I'll admit that it took a good while after birth for me to find my 'voice' again - to write creatively and passionately. Before then, the sentences just didn't come together. I don't feel like I sacrificed my artistic self for motherhood - it just took a back seat while I navigated those first few years. It took a while for me to recognise my new self and artistically I was silent. During that time there were many days where I flicked open my now dog-eared copy of The Divided Heart to seek some reassurance and inspiration.
In a series of deeply honest interviews, famous Australian women (and some not so famous) discuss the challenge of being a mother and an artist. The Divided Heart is a beautiful blend of intellect and conversation - raw, moving and personal. It explores the pain and the joy of being a mother and an artist and, at its very core, it offers a comforting reassurance: it is possible to do both, it just takes time.
I have one copy of The Divided Heart to give away. All you need to do is become a follower of Che & Fidel and leave a comment with your name and email address. This giveaway is open to international readers and will close March 28th. A winner will be chosen using the random number generator and I'll update this post with the winner's name.
Comments Closed. The Random Number Generator chose #22 - Tara Lucia Zaicz - congratulations lovely one!
I had the pleasure of interviewing the very eloquent Rachel Power about her experience writing the book and the affects it had on her professionally and personally..... Q: When did you first think of the concept for The Divided Heart?
A: I really can’t remember the initial spark, but in general the book came out of the psychic shock of becoming a mother; the way it brought everything else in my life into question. I know people roll their eyes at this — “It’s not like you’re the first woman to have a baby, lady” — but I think few of us are prepared for the way mothering tips our lives upside-down. Few, if any, experiences come near the emotional and practical impact of having children.
I had studied art history at university and I had largely swallowed the myth of the artist as a solitary, brooding, extreme character not really fit for everyday life. I didn’t have a picture of how an artist might pursue a creative career alongside, let alone within, a domestic life. Also, now that I was confronted with the enormity of the job of raising kids and maintaining a house, I gained a sudden insight into why — traditionally at least — it might have been so difficult for women to become successful artists.
This all seemed like very significant and largely unexplored territory to me, especially within the Australian context.
Q: How did your experience, as a mother and a writer, affect the creation of the book?
A: As a mother, it made it very slow! It was a stop-start process, interrupted mid-way by the birth of my second baby, but of course mothering was my subject, so really I was just describing my life as a new mother torn between my need to write and my passion for my kids. Of course, the book is really a distillation of the most heightened, extreme moments of that time, because it’s in those moments that you have the strongest need to express yourself. This inevitably means there are some readers who react against the book’s perceived intensity or self-indulgence. But personally I think you’ve got to milk those extreme moments, because that’s where the greatest honesty lies, and where you’re most likely to be tapping into something universal.
Q: How did you get all your interviewees involved?
A: I didn't really know that I was writing a book when I first started. I was just hungry for answers to what seemed like this problem of combining art and mothering, so I began sporadically approaching artists I admired.
Of course I’d done huge amounts of reading and thinking on the theme, so I arrived at interviews full of passion and ideas. What I wasn’t prepared for was how articulate these women were about their experiences. With some, it was as though they’d been waiting years to have a serious discussion about the subject, which obviously loomed so large in their lives. That’s what turned mere interviews into really exciting conversations.
It was really their enthusiasm for the project, and my sense of responsibility to them, that gave me the energy to continue.
Q: What was the journey like for you as a writer - what did you learn professionally?
A: It’s always difficult to know what you learned from a project. I know what I’d do differently if I wrote The Divided Heartagain, but that doesn't necessarily help me with the next book!
Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned about writing generally is that the best ideas come from some liquid world that flows beneath the surface of our conscious mind. The challenge is being available to receive those ideas when they swim up to meet us — not easy for mothers, who are so caught up in the demands of the material world. Also, I’ve learnt the importance of recording those ideas straight away. If you miss them the first time, they rarely come back again.
The other challenge for me is not losing sight of why I write in the first place; difficult when time alone is so scarce you’re almost crushed by the pressure to use it meaningfully. (The temptation to just cut your losses and do another load of washing is always fierce!) That’s why kids are such great teachers when it comes to making art; they’re not focused on the outcome, they’re just engaged in the joy of making something.
Q: Did you approach your role as mother and artist differently after writing the book?
A: Not differently enough! I’ve realised that there’s a reason why it was me (and not somebody else) who wrote The Divided Heart — because for me the internal conflict between creativity and mothering seems to be particularly extreme.
Firstly, I am a very slow writer and not very good at switching my creative brain off and on, not helped by being constantly interrupted! Also, I am really bad at withdrawing, physically and psychologically, from my family. A while ago, my partner took our kids to the adventure playground in St Kilda and writer/comedian Catherine Deveny wandered in with her three boys, set herself up at a table with her laptop and told the kids to come back only when they’re starving. Man, that woman rocks! I am way too pathetic for that. I’d be following them around the park all day trying to make sure nobody breaks an arm.
For me, the state of mind required for family life — not just the mothering, but the constant wrestling with the beast that is housework, bills, cooking, washing and preparing whatever uniform/instrument/note/lunchbox is required for the next day’s activities — feels the complete antithesis of what is required for creative work. Well, I’m bad at it, anyway; I know others who manage it with great flair.
Also, I have a day job, so writing is pressed in around the edges of my day-to-life. That said, if there’s anything I did learn from writing The Divided Heart, it’s that there is no substitute for discipline — and this is probably truer for mothers than anyone. Mothers need to give themselves the permission to carve out time for art, even if it’s only half an hour a day, and then the discipline to use that time wisely.
Q: What has been the general response from readers?
A:The lovely thing about writing a book like The Divided Heart is that your readers are mostly people just like you. So when readers contact me, I always respond, and it’s like emails between friends. A lot of women have sent me detailed messages about their own situations and struggles, and that is always very moving. It means a lot to me to know that the book offered solace or inspired someone to keep making their own work.
Of course there have been those who have reacted against the book — either they see it as a bunch of whinging women with white-goods who don’t know how good they’ve got it, or they just don’t relate (or don’t want to admit) to the maternal ambivalence I talk about. There are also those who immediately perceive the book as dark and as negative about mothering. I feel like I’ve got to constantly assert that it’s precisely because I love my kids so much that I experience such intense internal conflict. Otherwise I would have just outsourced their care and spent my time writing and it wouldn’t be a dilemma, would it?
Women need to be able to talk about how hard and confronting mothering can be — as well as how joyful — otherwise we’d all go a bit mad (or a bit madder, in my case).
Q: What's your next project?
A:I have just abandoned one novel to start another (still in embryonic stage). The abandoned one was almost a fictionalised version of The Divided Heart and I think I will come back to it. I’m not entirely done with the artist–mother thing yet, but I feel like I need a break from that particular obsession. (If you are looking for a great book on the theme, though, I highly recommend my friend Peggy Frew’s House of Sticks.) Everything I write is about relationships of one kind or another, but this new story was inspired by a news item I read recently rather than directly out of my own life — which, frankly, is a bit of a relief.
