Read my latest story, "The All-Nighter", at 52|250.

In an interview with Farideh Hassanzadeh-Mostafavi published in the current issue of Midway Journal, poet Adrienne Rich says

I do not believe we, as human beings, should be forced to choose between love and work. Both are necessary components of a fully lived life.   Art is a demanding discipline, but the greatest art thrives on relationship—not self-sacrifice but the intensely felt connection with other human beings.

I agree with her insofar as no human being should have to entirely eliminate love or work from their life in order to have the other. That said, even in a perfect world, there would be some tension between the need to work alone (unless you are fortunate enough to find someone with whom you can always intimately collaborate) even if in the physical presence of others and the need to spend time engaged and intimate with your loved ones.

Such tensions, however, are both good and necessary. They require an artist to learn to embrace contradiction and, if you want to be Whitmanesque, multitudes. They feed the creation not only of gray space and ambiguities but of contrasts that reveal the intricacies of both sides without necessarily passing moral judgment on either. This is not to say that moral and ethical positions cannot enter into art but, rather, that they should not enter merely by reflex; when their presence is not a default state, they stand out all the more.

Of course, we do not live in a perfect world. Employment (possibly at multiple part-time jobs that still barely cover rent), commuting hours (especially if you have to ride the bus), and the like all reduce the time available for making art and love. Up to a point, this can lead to a heightened sense of the use of contrast, but beyond a certain point, it begins to break down. Beyond a certain point, you fall asleep on the bus and drop your notebook. Women are especially prone to hitting this breaking point because women are still responsible for most unpaid domestic labor, even if they work outside their own homes.

Some people, including myself, have the luxury of quitting their jobs or cutting back their hours when they hit this point. Not everyone does. It gets hard to concentrate when your stomach is sending desperate hunger signals to your brain, harder still when your children are also complaining.

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