E. Catherine Tobler
When my mother discovered that I wanted to be a writer, she told a friend at work. I do not know if she told this friend out of pride or vexation, though I suspect the latter. I had left college because we could no longer afford it, and I was working as a nanny. Writing was one thing I felt capable of—though I had not sold a single thing to prove this daydream. Fanfic had welcomed me, and would prove to be a great training ground, but I wanted to create original characters and worlds.
Mom came home one day and handed me a slip of paper. On it was written Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott. Mom said, my friend says if you want to be a writer, you should read this. I called up Waldenbooks and asked about the book. They had one copy and would hold it for me. I went to the bookstore the following day.
“Do good work,” mom tells me when I go to my desk.
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January 17, 2023
Mom doesn’t know where she is today; it isn’t the first time, and won’t be the last time. She thinks she’s in her old office—thinks she has a report due. She cannot see the reality of her bedroom around her, can only see mounds of paper, can only feel a looming deadline.
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As good and as helpful and as foundational as Bird by Bird was (and is), it didn’t address the main concern that would come to impact my writing practice. No one could foresee that I would become my mother’s primary caregiver as her health declined.
We all wish for our parents to have good health as they age, or that the necessary care will be affordable and easily obtained. Some of us don’t live in that world. While most writers balance writing with a day job that actually pays the bills, some also have family care added to that load, be it children or elderly, infirm parents. If you are an only child, you do this thing because there is no one else to do the thing.
How does one balance creativity with the daily brainsuck of caregiving? I’m not going to pretend caregiving doesn’t suck because it often does. This isn’t yet another Hallmark movie where the aging is beautiful and lesson-laden. This is a steady, daily decline that flattens my brain most days. How do you create when half the work you do is devoted to seeing someone toward their end?
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March 30, 2021
Mom doesn’t know who I am today. I told her I am her daughter and she laughed, saying her daughter has longer hair. As a child I did have; mom spent long hours brushing my hair with No More Tangles, while I cried and cried.
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As with most things, even writing, you have to be observant. You have to, as Eleanor Arroway did in Contact, find the pattern in the noise. This can be almost impossible with caregiving, because quite often the person you are caring for won’t adhere to any kind of a routine, at least not one you establish.
Pay attention to natural rhythms; when do they want to sleep, when do they want to eat? This touches back on my days as a nanny—caregiver or parent, your life often happens when they are asleep.
In my mother’s case, I got lucky, as her nightly sleep habits were initially very regular, so we started there. This isn’t to say it’s flawless; my mom has dementia as a secondary condition brought on by her primary illness, and sometimes this makes for a wonky sleep schedule. Sometimes she’s wide awake at 1 a.m. This doesn’t necessarily mean I write at 1 a.m.—but it does mean that I might have a window for reading poetry or doodling notes on a project I’m working on as I wait for her to find her way back toward sleep.
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July 8, 2020
Mom is awake and asking me what we plan to do about this. This? I ask her. This—she gestures to the house. Have you seen what they did, we can’t live here, what are we going to do? She thinks the front of the house is gone, simply sheared off by someone for Reasons. In her mind, she can see the nighttime where the house should be. She is completely confused as to why I cannot see it and am not bothered.
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Some nights I opt out. Sometimes, you can’t find the pocket of quiet in which to create. Sometimes, you say “alas” and grit your way through whatever your loved one is experiencing. You were supposed to write a thousand words today, but mom soiled herself twice and you’re on your third load of laundry? You opt out. There will be another day.
This has probably been the hardest lesson for me to learn—that another time will come. I am older than many of my peers; every day, I feel time running out and, with my mom’s care, I see it running out. Another day lost, another chance not taken, another story not finished, another book not begun. I am surrounded by heaps of laundry and clothing that is dirty almost as instantly as it is put on, while social media screams with a friend’s latest book sale and my email groans with another book rejection.
My mother does not know the date, the year, the president. She does not feel this weight on her chest. I do.
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November 28, 2019
Though it’s only me and mom, I cooked a full meal (because I foolishly wanted turkey and trimmings) and we ate at our regular Thanksgiving time (4 p.m.). BUT. At our regular everyday dinnertime, mom said she was hungry, so I ended up making her another meal, despite having already cooked a different meal all day.
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We look for the pattern in the noise—even if the noise is omnipresent.
With my mom, it became clear that she liked to nap after her lunch and could easily take two hours. I took this time on Saturdays and Sundays to draft a novel, combining it with the “5k weekends” I used to do with friends. Could I write 2500 words in two hours? There was only one way to find out.
Not every weekend worked out—sometimes my word count fell short of the goal, sometimes mom didn’t nap, and sometimes my brain just needed a weekend off. No matter what we think, or are taught to believe, many writers do not write every day. You don’t have to. It works for many people. It doesn’t work for an equal number of people. Despite what NaNoWriMo would tell you, there is no ideal daily word count for every writer.
Sometimes opening the file is a victory.
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April 19, 2018
Mom woke me in the night, screaming for help. Thus proving the value of the monitor I bought, because I could hear her clearly. I bolted out of bed and wrenched my shoulder?? But I got in her room and she wasn’t on the floor—though she was perhaps headed that way. Maybe she was trying to get out of bed—her legs were dangling over the side—but she couldn’t sit up. I got her up, and then resettled, but she kept saying she needed to go, that she was late.
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Some days are about self-care, as worn as that phrase may now be. If your sleep was continually interrupted, if the day job won’t wait, if medical appointments for you or a loved one need setting, if prescriptions need collecting, if your neighbor needs the mail you picked up while they were traveling, if the phone is ringing, if a bathroom needs cleaning, if the dishwasher is overflowing, if the laundry, the laundry, the laundry, if schedules need coordinating—
Sometimes there is too much noise and no good way to shut it out or focus to find a pattern. Sometimes I just want to step into the dark garage and scream until I can’t scream any more. So that’s what I do.
But how does that help the writing process, you wonder.
It doesn’t. It helps the writer.
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March 18, 2025
I’m having hand surgery tomorrow, and I’m stressing about how I will care for mom after. My hand will be in a splint for a while, so that will likely help. I’ve prepped everything I can think to prep and well, I’ve lived with one hand before. I cared for her like this before—though she was more capable three years ago when I first injured myself. How will I get through?
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The hard thing is, we don’t always know. We can’t plan, we can’t see everything that is to come, we aren’t psychic despite all hopes of becoming so. How do I write while juggling these five other things? How do I find time for myself when all my care has been given to someone else? How do I save something for me? How do I write a novel with one functioning hand? How do I dig deep to find that shining idea I had at 2 a.m. on Tuesday when it’s now 10 p.m. on Saturday and I am made of melted Jell-O?
Anne Lamott has an idea in Bird by Bird about one-inch picture frames. It’s the same idea E. L. Doctorow had with his “writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
Sometimes, I can’t look beyond the current day (the current hour), because I have no idea how mom will sleep, so I can’t plan the following day. I once showed a friend my planner for a week and they asked me why nothing was filled in, whereas they had chunks of writing time neatly planned out and set for the week. It is hard not to envy people without caregiving responsibilities—they know every day will be entirely theirs. No one (no one) has the same twenty-four hours.
When I have no time for me, I take a breath, and then another one. I trust in the process that has gotten me across so many years already. Every day I start again—I look into that one-inch space. I check out what the headlights are hitting. I picture the Blues Brothers in their car. I picture the opening of my novel. And then I get up to help mom, because she’s hollering again.
After, when I tell her I’ll be at my desk, she tells me always to “do good work,” and I think that I am. I think that I am.
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May 26, 2025
Mom is going into hospice; her doctor says she has one to three days. We are following her wishes. We are doing good—impossible—work. I am numb and in, I don’t know, disbelief and relief, that we are finally here. We said goodbyes tonight just in case. “She is on her way,” Dr. Travis tells me.
