How Lockdown has Broken Down the Lies of Modern Motherhood

By Jami Ingledue — BEHIND DOMESTIC LINES

This May cold snap has been brutal.

Over and over again, we cover the lilacs, the strawberries, the new trees we planted, the young asparagus spearing its way hopefully toward the heavens. It feels like insult added to injury. After two months of this shitshow, we finally make it to May, only to be greeted by a Polar Vortex? I don’t know how much more I can take.

I have found myself nearly unable to function these past few days. I want to sleep. All day. I can’t fight the screen-time battles anymore. Three hours of Minecraft? Sure, whatever. I can’t cook one more goddamn meal or clean up the endless crumbs. How can there be so many crumbs?! We all sleep late, because who cares? It doesn’t matter anyway.

So I gave myself permission to hibernate during this last (god willing) cold spell. To cocoon, as my body wants to — to cuddle and watch movies, eat too many cookies, ignore the dishes.

I can’t really change it anyway when my body feels like this. I can drag myself through my day. But no amount of coffee or exercise can really snap me out of it when my body wants to cocoon.

From the outside, cocooning may not seem “productive,” but something is always growing in a cocoon.