Black Milk: On Writing, Motherhood, and the Harem Within

by Elif Shafak

  Likewise I had embraced depression to the point of seeing it as a permanent condition and looking at life through its blurry lenses. I urgently had to go back to writing to find my way out of this quagmire. I had to put my thoughts on paper, but the words wouldn’t flow. I couldn’t write for eight months.

  Eight months might seem like nothing; for me, however, it felt like an eternity. During that time, postpartum depression became an inseparable part of my life. Wherever I went, whatever I did, Lord Poton followed me like an avid stalker. His presence was tiring, and yet he never took things to the extremes. He didn’t eradicate you, but he turned you into something less than human, an empty shell of your former self. Perhaps he didn’t stop you from eating and drinking altogether, but he took all the pleasure out of it. Perhaps he didn’t destroy all your reserves of strength, but he drained them enough that you felt stuck between deep sleep and wakefulness, like a doomed somnambulant.

  Before I knew it, literature turned into a distant and forbidden land with bulky guards protecting its boundaries. Worried that I would never be allowed in again, I wondered if writing was like riding a bike—something you didn’t really ever forget once you learned how to do it. Or was it like learning Arabic or Korean? The kind of skill that abandoned you, little by little, if you were out of practice for long.

  First, I convinced myself that I had forgotten how to write.

  Then I started suspecting that writing had forgotten me.

  Writing novels—composing stories, creating and destroying characters—is a game favored by those who refuse to grow up. Even though the game takes place on paper, the possibility of playing it over and over again helps you forget your own mortality. “The spoken word perishes, the written word remains.” Or so we like to think. It gives comfort against the fleetingness of life. A novelist believes, somewhere deep down inside, that she or he is immortal.

  And faith is an important part of being a writer. You come to believe so intensely in the stories you create that the outside world at times will seem dull and inconsequential. When your friends call, when some important matter arises, when your husband wants to go out to dinner, when social responsibilities weigh down on your shoulders, you will find an excuse to get out of each. Everything will be “secondary”—only for writing will you find the time.

  The novelist is, and has to be, selfish. Motherhood is based on “giving.”

  While the novelist is an introvert—at least for the duration of writing her novel—a mother is, by definition, an extrovert. The novelist builds a tiny room in the depths of her mind and locks the door so that no one can get in. There she hides her secrets and ambitions from all prying eyes. As for the mother, all her doors and windows must be wide open morning and night, summer and winter. Her children can enter through whichever entrance they choose, and roam around as they please. She has no secret corner.

  When your child falls and scrapes his knees or comes home with his tonsils swollen or lies in bed with fever or when he performs as SpongeBob SquarePants in the school play, you cannot say, “Okay, well, I am writing a new chapter just now. Can you please check back with me next month?”

  Betty Friedan—writer, activist, feminist—firmly believed that we needed a broader definition of success than the one largely held by modern society. We had to reframe family values in order to change the system in which every suburban mother struggled on her own, thinking there was something intrinsically wrong with her when she experienced the slightest sense of failure. Friedan herself wrote groundbreaking books and raised three children. “People’s priorities—men’s and women’s alike—should be affirming life, enhancing life, not greed,” she said.

  All kinds of depression deepen when we forget to enhance life. Perhaps the most persistent question we ask ourselves at times like these is, Why? Why is this happening to me? Why not to others, why me? Saint Teresa of Avila once said, “Our soul is like a castle created out of a single diamond or some other similarly clear crystal.” The trouble is we women sometimes fear the crystal is irreparably fractured when it is not, and we think it is our fault when it is not.

  My maternal grandmother was married at the age of fifteen to an army officer she had seen for only two minutes (my grandfather knocked on her door pretending to be looking for an address, and she opened the door and gave him directions, similarly pretending). My mother married a philosophy student at the age of twenty, when she was still in college and could not be dissuaded from marrying so young.

  One woman had an arranged marriage in Turkey in the 1930s, raised three kids and was fully dependent on her husband’s ability to support her. The other married in a love marriage of her choice, got divorced, graduated from college (she finished her degree after the divorce), raised her kid and was economically independent. Although my grandmother was bound by traditional gender roles and my mother was the emancipated one, interestingly, when it came to surviving the vicissitudes of womanhood (like postpartum blues, menopause, etc.), there were times when my grandmother was better prepared. From one generation to the next some valuable information was lost along the way: that at different stages in her life a woman could need, would need, the help of her sisters, blood or not. As for my generation, we are so carried away with the propaganda that we can do anything and everything we want, our feet don’t always touch the ground. Perhaps we forget how to ask for help when we need it most.

  Today, we do not speak or write much about the face of motherhood that has been left in the shadows. Instead, we thrive on two dominant teachings: the traditional view that says motherhood is our most sacred and significant obligation and we should give up everything else for this duty; and the “modern” women’s magazine view that portrays the quintessential “superwoman” who has a career, husband and children and is able to satisfy everyone’s needs at home and at work.

  As different as these two views seem to be, they have one thing in common: They both focus solely on what they want to see, disregarding the complexity and intensity of motherhood, and the way in which it transforms a woman and her crystal heart.

  Farewell to a Djinni

  Katherine Mansfield once remarked in that captivating voice of hers, “True to oneself! Which self? Which of my many—well really, that’s what it looks like it’s coming to—hundreds of selves? For what with complexes and repressions and reactions and vibrations and reflections, there are moments when I feel I am nothing but the small clerk of some hotel without a proprietor.”18

  As the small clerk of my own hotel, I wish I could say that, in the end, using my willpower, self-control or wits, I defeated Lord Poton. I wish I could claim that I beat him with my own strength by cooking up a grand scheme, tricking him into oblivion. But it didn’t happen like that.

  This is not to say that none of the treatments had any effect. I’m sure some of them did. But the end to my postpartum depression came more of its own accord, with the completion of some inner cycle. Only when the time was right, when I was “right,” did I get out of that dark, airless rabbit hole. Just as a day takes twenty-four hours and a week takes seven days, just as a butterfly knows when to leave its cocoon and a seed knows when to spring into a flower, just as we go through stages of development, just as everything and everyone in this universe has a “use by” date, so does postpartum depression.

  There are two ways to regard this matter:

  The Pessimist: “If one cannot come out of depression before the time is ripe, there is nothing I can do about it.”

  The Optimist: “If one cannot come out of depression before the time is ripe, there is nothing depression can do to me.”

  If you are leaning toward the Pessimist’s approach, then chances are you are in the first stages of postpartum depression. If you are leaning toward the Optimist’s, then congratulations, you are nearing the exit. Every woman requires a varying amount of time to complete the cycle. For some it takes a few weeks, for others more than a year. But no matter how complex or dizzying it seems to b
e, every labyrinth has a way out.

  All you have to do is walk toward it.

  Lord Poton: There is something different about you this morning. A sparkle in your eyes that wasn’t there before.

  Me: Really? Could be. I had a strange dream last night.

  Lord Poton: I hope it was a nightmare! Sorry, I have to say that. After all, I am a dastardly djinni. I can’t wish you anything good, it’s against the rules.

  Me: That’s okay. It was as intense as a nightmare anyway.

  Lord Poton (more interested now): Oh, really? Tell me!

  Me: Well, we were standing by a harbor, you and I. It turns out you were leaving on a ship that transports djinn from this realm into the next. It was a mammoth ship with lots of lights. The port was so crowded, hundreds of pregnant women were gathered there with their big bellies. Then you embarked and I sadly waved good-bye to you.

  Lord Poton (confused): You were sad to see me go? Are you sure? You must have been jumping for joy. Why, I’ve destroyed your life.

  Me: No, you haven’t. It was me who has done this to myself.

  Lord Poton (even more confused): Are you trying to tell me you’re not mad or angry with me?

  Me: I am not, actually. I think I needed to live through this depression to better reassemble the pieces. When I look at it this way, I owe you thanks.

  As if I have smacked him in his face, Lord Poton flushes scarlet up to his ears and takes a step back.

  Lord Poton (his voice shaking): No one has spoken to me like this before. I don’t know what to say. (His eyes fill with tears.) Women hate me. Doctors, therapists, too. Oh, the terrible things they write about me! You have no idea how it feels to be insulted in brochures, books and Web sites.

  Me: Listen, that ship in my dream had a name: Aurora. It means “dawn” in Spanish, safak in Turkish.

  Widening his slanting eyes, he looks at me blankly.

  Me: Don’t you understand? I am that ship. I was the one who brought you into the port of my life.

  Lord Poton (scratching his head): Let’s accept what you are saying for a moment. Why would you do such a thing?

  Me: Because I thought I couldn’t deal with my contradictory voices anymore. I’ve always found it hard to handle the Thumbelinas. If I agreed with one, I could never make it up to the others. If I loved one a little more, the others would begin to complain. It was always that way. I had been making do by leaning a little bit on one and then a little bit on another. But after I gave birth the system stopped functioning. I couldn’t bear the plurality inside of me. Motherhood required oneness, steadiness and completeness, while I was split into six voices, if not more. I cracked under the pressure. That was when I called you.

  That is when the strangest thing happens. There, in front of my eyes, Lord Poton starts to dissolve, like fog in the sunlight.

  Lord Poton (taking out his silk napkin and dabbing at his eyes): I guess it is time for me to leave, then. I never thought I would get so emotional. (He wipes his nose.) I’m sorry—you took me by surprise is all.

  Me: That’s all right.

  Lord Poton (sniffling): I guess I’ll miss you. Will you write to me?

  Me: I’ll write about you. I’ll write a book.

  Lord Poton (clapping his hands): How exciting! I’m going to be famous!

  A heavy silence descends, rushing into my ears like the wind through the leaves. I feel light, as if something has held me and lifted me up.

  Lord Poton: Well, good-bye. But what will happen to the finger-women?

  Me: I will take them out of the box. I’m going to give them each an equal say. The oligarchy has ended, and so have the coup d’état, monarchy, anarchy and fascism. It is finally time for a full-fledged democracy.

  Lord Poton (laughing): Let me warn you, love, democracy is not a bed of roses.

  Me: You might be right. But still, I’d prefer it to all other regimes.

  PART SEVEN

  Daybreak

  The Calm after the Storm

  One sunny day in August, when the plums in the garden had ripened to purple perfection, Eyup came back from the military, looking thinner and darker. He didn’t say a word for a long time, only smiled. Then I heard him in the bathroom, talking lovingly to the shampoo bottles, perfumes and creams.

  “You don’t say hi to your wife, but you chat with your shaving cream?” I asked.

  He laughed. “In the army one gets to miss even the tiniest luxuries in life and learns to be grateful for what he has on hand.”

  “Perhaps depression teaches us the same thing, too,” I said. “I’ve learned to look around with new, appreciative eyes.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you,” he murmured, pulling me toward him. Then he added pensively, “We could have handled this better.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why didn’t we ask for help from our families or friends while you were going through that turbulence? Why didn’t we hire a nanny to help you? You tried to do everything alone. Why?”

  I nodded. “I thought I could manage. I thought I could rock the baby to sleep, feed her healthy food and write my novels. It never occurred to me I wouldn’t be able to do this alone. That was my strength and my weakness at the same time.”

  “From now on, we will do it together,” he said tenderly.

  “Good,” I exclaimed. “Are you going to take care of the baby while I write?”

  He paused, a trace of panic flickering in his eyes. “Let’s start looking for a nanny.”

  We did. In ten days we found a nanny from Azerbaijan, a woman larger than life—huge breasts, teeth capped with gold, a loud voice and a hearty laugh. A bewildering combination of Mary Poppins, Xena the Warrior Princess and Impedimenta—the stout, matriarchal wife of Chief Vitalstatistix and the first lady of the village in Asterix the Gaul. A woman who could say the sweetest words in Turkish, talk a blue streak in Russian, and believed the main problem with Stalin was that he hadn’t had a good nanny as a child. She taught us the basics about babies—how to burp them, rock them to sleep, feed them, and still have time for ourselves. She helped us greatly. We all helped one another.

  The same month, there was the anniversary of a liberal newspaper’s literature supplement. When I went to the place of celebration, I found a crowd of novelists, poets, critics, local and foreign reporters, photographers and academics drinking wine out of paper cups, nibbling cheese cubes and milling about garrulously. As in most social activities in Istanbul there was a thick, gray haze that swirled around in lazy spirals, the smoke of all those cigarettes, cigars and pipes hovering in the atmosphere. But we were on a terrace and the air beyond and above us was crisp, the sky a deep ocean blue.

  It was there that, after all this time, I ran into Mrs. Adalet Agaoglu. She broke into a smile when she saw me.

  “Do you remember the talk we had a while ago?” she said.

  “How can I forget?” I said.

  “I think you did the right thing by becoming a mother in the end,” she said, holding my hand in her hand, my eyes in her stare.

  I gently squeezed her hand, and offered humbly in return, “And I respect your decision not to become a mother so as to fully dedicate yourself to your writing.”

  After all, as even the smallest glimpse into the lives of women writers—East and West, past and present—keenly shows, every case is different. There is no single formula for motherhood and writing that suits us all. Instead, there are many paths on this literary journey, all leading to the same destination, each equally valuable. Just as every writer learns to develop his or her own unique style and is yet inspired by the works of others, as women, as human beings, we all elaborate our personal answers to universal questions and needs, heartened by one another’s courage.

  Later on, as I watched Mrs. Agaoglu walk away from the party and the evening come to a slow close, I realized the wheel of life had moved through one full turn.

  Rule of the Thumbelinas by the Thumbelinas

  I h
old the lockbox tightly in my lap, listening. Not a sound. Not a peep. My heart pummels wildly. Are they all right? I have missed them so much my eyes water.

  A little bit of twisting and the lock opens with a click.

  “Please come out,” I say.

  Nothing moves for a full minute. Then, shielding their eyes from the sudden light, weary but otherwise in good shape, the finger-women start to emerge one by one.

  “Finally, freedom!” says Mama Rice Pudding. “My back has gone stiff. What a terrible experience. No refrigerator, no microwave, no rice cooker. I couldn’t even brew tea for months!”

  Miss Highbrowed Cynic’s head pops up next. Gathering the skirts of her hippie dress, she walks out, a haughty look on her small face.

  “You speak for yourself. I’m pretty sure this existential torment we now left behind will generate an artistic breakthrough in me. The Greek philosophers thought melancholy wasn’t necessarily a bad experience. According to Plato, for instance, melancholy could increase the quality of artistic production. . . .”