As you know, we’ve both been meaning to update/rewrite our bios for this very website. Well, I finally sat down to do it yesterday and this is what came out:
Kara is a writer, wife, mother, and free-ranging animal who lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Not to bring myself into this bio as soon as possible (but here I go anyway!): When I’m having a rough time with something (life?), I often think to myself: I wonder how Kara would handle this? Or, if I’m feeling particularly down on myself: I bet Kara wouldn’t find herself in this kind of situation. See, in my opinion, Kara has a really strong sense of self and seems to make both macro and micro choices that honor that self. She then follows up this decision by not torturing herself about it. Another way of putting it: when reading anything Kara’s written, a sense of calm comes over me. Speaking of Kara’s writing, you can find much more of it on her site, Sut Nam Bonsai.
Recently, I was doing an exercise in my personal copy of The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook, Sixth Edition and had to answer the question: “What is it that I really want out of life?” I wrote: “I want a family that seemingly enjoys each other and loves each other. I think about big family gatherings like the one we had in Portland. It was so great to spend time together.”
I mention this because over text message the other day, I was relaying to Kara a moment from Jonathan Franzen’s interview on Fresh Air. (Kara had recently written about Franzen on Sut Nam Bonsai. Since it wasn’t the first or second or maybe even third time she’d written about him, I now consider them to be close friends.) I thought that he’d been given bad advice from his New Yorker editor who basically steered him away from having children. In Jonathan’s words to Terry Gross:
“Well, what my New Yorker editor said was many people can be good parents, not very many people can write novels like yours. So what I would've lost [by having kids] was an opportunity to really devote myself to digging ever deeper in my books. I think it would've - I would've become a different kind of person and maybe, you know, and maybe a better person.”
As I listened, I got a strong urge to call in to the show. (Fresh Air takes calls from opinionated listeners, right?). For starters, who was to say he couldn’t both parent and dig deeper into his books? And secondly: what about the idea that parenting might shake up his viewpoint and lead to even better books? Maybe fewer, yes, but also: possibly better! That said, it sort of sounds like Franzen’s editor gave him the answer he wanted or made the most sense to him and thus, he could move on in good conscience. And sure, that's fine too. (I also think that people who don't want to have kids definitely shouldn't.)
Point being: I was texting all of this to Kara who had not heard the interview but who, as part of her response, sent me this gem:
“I guess it really truly depends what you want out of life. Me, I want a pile of warm bodies watching movies on the couch with me. Under a blanket I knitted ;)”
It didn’t dawn on me until later that Kara and I had basically answered the same big question within a matter of days rather similarly.
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What do you think, Kara? It might need some editing. ;)
Xox
Amelia
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