letter #51: One word that describes the love mothers feel
Awe, the blissful euphoria of language.
Listen above if you’re on the go or being a blob.
The most intense love story I know is the one I have with myself and my daughter.
I have never been able to quite define my love for her with words, which is perhaps part of the luster of motherhood love. When I do try, it all just ends up sounding really creepy: My love for her is just so…I want to wear her like a shirt? Put her in my pocket? Sip her like a lemonade? Stare at her whenever she’s in the room? I can’t take my eyes OFF her. When I’m away from her, she feels like a phantom limb, another organ, a magnetic pull. My mother always told me, “I would take a bullet for you.” And I fully get that now. I would jump in front of a bus to save her.
Limerence: The word of motherhood love
I read this quote recently in Ada Calhoun’s book “Crush.”
“We learned the word ‘limerence’ — a term for involuntary obsession coined in the 1970s … ‘Limerence involves intrusive thinking … a condition of sustained alertness … At peak crystallization, almost all waking thoughts revolve around the limerent object.’”
Although, in the book, the author was referencing true love with a partner, I thought of motherhood instantly.
Limerence. What a word. Psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined the term "limerence" as an alteration of "amorance" to describe a concept that had grown out of her work in the 1960s, when she interviewed over 500 people on the topic of love. The word itself has this shimmery quality to it.
The quote went on:
“How long did limerence last? According to one source, ‘From the moment of initiation until a feeling of neutrality is reached, is approximately three years. The extremes may be as brief as a few weeks or as long as several decades.'"
I was obsessed with relating this quote to motherhood. I was also obsessed with the longevity of motherhood limerence; and how it seems to pulse forever.
I think about Lila all the time. And, in a way, my feelings towards her do feel a bit like a 7th grade crush. I’m so excited to see her when she’s been at daycare all day. I anticipate the moment hours leading up to it, imagining her little face. She makes me hugely nervous and perhaps a bit confused. The feelings are intense, which may be the reason for the confusion and nervousness. Like in middle school, being around her makes me unlike my past self in so many ways. I can barely hold a conversation when she’s in the room. I’m always watching her and facing her with my whole body: my toes, my nose, my hips. I can’t really dig into a conversation or step outside of myself. She’s all there with me. I am her and she is me. Another reason loving her might be like a middle school crush? I overthink everything. Our interactions, how I converse with her, scold her, love her. Everything has a toddler tax; I imagine how I’m behaving could change who she is forever.
So, how long does this limerence, this obsessional love, last for mothers? Is this limerent love a segment of the baby blues? Do we only feel back to ourselves after the three years? When our hormones drop back to normal levels again? Or, is motherhood limerance a certain brand in itself—eternal, living on forever?
Of course, of course it’s forever. That’s the magnitude of motherhood and love. That obsession, that crush-like feeling we grew up with, is eternal when we become mothers. I would have loved to understand that before having Lila. I would have loved if someone told me: Remember how obsessed you were with boys in high school? That you fell asleep imagining them, bumping into them in hallways, finding them randomly at the grocery store? And being so intense about it, you couldn’t eat? That’s how motherhood feels. It’s an obsession that you can’t even plan to expect. It’s shrill and vibrant and everything all at once.
And that love grows with time. The love for my daughter was going to be like a snowball, getting bigger and greater each day. I would become forever obsessed with her existence, mourning her growth and past selves and progress and watching her like my eyes are backed by a forcefield every single day.
And that love would be other things, too. So many other things. It will slowly reel my self back in.
Motherhood as a romantic comedy
Lately, I find myself reading/watching love stories about different couples and then comparing quotes/feelings directly to my experience falling in love with myself as a mother. Because, in a way, having children is a grand re-learning of loving oneself, the same way we might fall for another person.
Here’s another quote from Ada Calhoun’s “Crush”:
“Falling in love returned me to myself. I shook my life upside-down like an old purse. I put some things into a new purse and left some things out, and that was what I’d carry for some unknown length of time.”
Yes, motherhood has lashed me on the ground like half-dead prey and also made me a ravaging predator myself. I have been lost and found. And yet, the grandness of those opposites clashing together have brought me to a core of myself I’ve never known. The middleness of myself.
These quotes are everywhere, a little gesture from screenwriters and authors trying to articulate love. Another quote from “Crush:”
“Loving him had been my liberation. Everything had blown up and everything seemed deliriously possible.”
In “Grey’s Anatomy,” by Meredith Grey:
“You lose yourself in love and you find yourself in love.”
And that’s what motherhood is: a long thread of losing and finding yourself in the intense, brazen, shimmering limerence of love for your child. In that limerence, you find new ways to crawl out of the deep, deep adoration you are suddenly overwhelmed by and fearful about. You become a new version of yourself, one that adores a human so deeply, why wouldn’t you find your own reflection in the mirror to understand an obsession? To understand what makes life so beautiful? It’s you, it’s us.
I will end with a quote from Charlotte McConaghy’s novel “Wild Dark Shore.”
“Loving a place is the same as having a child. They are both too much an act of hope, of defiance. And those are fool’s weapons.”
So, may we love like fools. ❤️
For an easy, summery dish, I am personally thinking about this sheet-pan gochujang chicken with roasted vegetables. (New York Times Cooking)
Since this Substack essay was about love, let’s take a moment for an Anne Carson poem, 'On Hedonism.’ Good LORD how do these words show up in her magical mind?
Okay, Old Navy is going OFF with their latest THE OCCASION line. For my body type (mom bod, curvy, short torso, big boobs) I’m loving this flirty frock and this dress for summer weddings! All under $60!
Another day, another collection of beautiful pens.
My *bad take* is that the vibe is Addison Rae’s glorious new bop:
On my reading list: “Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age” by New York Times culture writer Amanda Hess. She said that the research for this new memoir about new motherhood and technology had turned her social media feed into “a kaleidoscope of maternal anxiety and control.” (embedded)
These words in the article “On Rejection” by
. She writes about the value of rejection in a creative life. I’m ordering her latest book, “Dear Writer.”“A no is a subjective no to one specific batch of work at one specific moment in time by one particular reader for a variety of reasons.”
Butter nails all summer long. (Vogue)
An article about how Scaachi Koul shelled out $7.99 to read a book a bot wrote entirely about her. I’ve been thinking about the below quote for quite some time. (Slate)
Word of the day: Quiddity. It means “the inherent nature or essence of someone or something.” The you-ness of you. To me, quiddity is what the best poets translate through their writing—formal or free verse, ruminative or praising, expansive or brief, the nature of themselves.
In one of my favorite culture Substacks,
, wrote a glorious feature about Lorde’s return to music. But my favorite tidbit is her water-cooler note: Why are so many celebrities (Katy Perry, Lizzo, Taylor Swift) stuck in a 2017 concept of feminism? Someone want to discuss? Write a think piece about this? I NEED IT.Can we just … take a moment to BE with Vladamir Kanevsky’s gorgeous porcelain flowers?! These flowers are made out of CLAY. Clay!! How on EARTH?
I really appreciated this essay by
called “Why I’m Not a Fan of Gentle Parenting.” It sheds light on the pressure of mothers in this day and age and highlights some unique alternatives.The top three on my TBR list: Careless People, by Sarah Wynn-Williams + The Favorites by Layne Fargo + My First Book by Honor Levy.
Lastly, but not lastly. Some snack inspiration.
