I’m back with another micro-interview with a mother/artist whose work speaks to me deep down. When I was in the early stages of motherhood myself, I read Sarah Menkedick’s book, Homing Instincts, and found so much camaraderie in the reading experience — like Sarah, I had led a peripatetic life (in China, mostly) for much of young adulthood and was now thrust into early mothering back in the United States and attempting to find my footing.
I remember reaching out to Sarah back then to tell her: your work matters so much to me. And now I’m so grateful that we’ve continued to keep in touch and that her writing world has only continued to blossom and expand to include additional books, articles, and a very inspiring Substack — be sure to subscribe to Terms of Endearment here!
A bit more about Sarah: she is the author of Ordinary Insanity: Fear and the Silent Crisis of Motherhood in America and Homing Instincts. Her essays and journalism have been featured in prestigious publications such as Harper’s, the New York Times, the New York Times Book Review, and so many more.
Sarah was a Fulbright Fellow in Oaxaca, Mexico, and has received fellowships and support from the Ohioana Foundation, Creative Nonfiction, and the DART Center at Columbia University. For over five years, she ran Vela, a nonprofit magazine showcasing nonfiction written by women, which garnered praise from NPR, the New Yorker, Outside, and others.
She spent most of her twenties abroad, teaching English and living on a shoestring budget in Latin America, Asia, the French island of La Réunion, and finally Oaxaca, Mexico, where she met her husband and lived for five years. Sarah returned to the U.S. for grad school, earning an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Pittsburgh.
Now, she splits her time between Pittsburgh, PA, and Oaxaca, balancing travel with an artist’s budget. Sarah is a mother, a runner, a devoted daily meditator, and a superfan of chickens. Her Instagram (@familiasantiago) reflects her obsession with these delightful animals.
And now, Sarah, take it away…
1) Where is the most unexpected place you’ve found creative inspiration as a parent?
I think a lot of my creative inspiration as a parent has come from places that would ordinarily be considered very mundane, beneath the consideration of an artist. For example, breastfeeding was a huge source of creative inspiration. That connection — its intensity, its physicality, the way it reshapes time and self — was so powerful for me.
This past year, my husband and I homeschooled our daughter. We knew we'd be spending quite a bit of time in Mexico, and we couldn't keep her in school in the U.S. We also didn't want to be tied down by school in Mexico. So we pulled her out and began this homeschooling journey. I became fascinated by observing her. What was her response to being asked to say, write a free verse poem? What did she struggle with? Embrace? When? How? Why? Paying really careful attention to the most minute details of the learning process raised these huge questions for me: what do we consider "worth" learning? Why? What is an education for?
2) When you parent your creative self, what form of discipline do you use?
Oh man, I wish I could say that I use gentle, supportive, understanding words; lots of patience; and loving-kindness, but I think I am a very authoritarian parent to my creative self. I can be extremely harsh and unforgiving when I feel like I'm not doing enough, achieving enough. I aspire to be much more spacious with myself!
3) Who are your caregiver-artist inspirations?
Louise Erdrich. Her book The Blue Jay's Dance was the most gorgeous validation and inspiration I needed in early pregnancy. I ended up writing a whole Paris Review essay about it. I love Carrie Fountain's poetry about motherhood. As well as Pattiann Rogers and Barbara Kingsolver.
For more from my Finding Art In Life series, check out:
Italian mother/photographer Lucia Dovere
Mother/painter/nurse Helen Garber
Polish mother/photographer Tori Ferenc
And my latest podcast episode featuring mother/poet Eleanor Stanford is out now: