D Moms

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the editor’s letter that I penned for the inaugural issue of D Moms.

It focused on the idea of living your best life, fostering your creativity, nurturing yourself if you will. Rather than paraphrase, I’m going to include it here in its entirety (feel free to skip, if you’ve already read it), here goes:

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A couple of years ago, I was listening to an interview with the actor Jason Schwartzman on NPR’s Fresh Air when host Terry Gross asked him how his mother, actress Talia Shire, nurtured his creativity. I was certain Schwartzman would answer that she shuttled him to a string of enriching activities, convinced that his immense creativity had to be a result of a roster of classes, spearheaded by Talia.

But it was nothing like that.

“I would come home from school; she would always be downstairs with an old movie on,” Schwartzman said. “Every room in our house had a different book open. There would be music on in one room… and she would kind of just go from room to room and pick up and read and go and listen and go downstairs and watch… And so I witnessed how important these things can be to you.”

To say that Schwartzman’s words resonated with me would be an understatement. They changed me, giving me license to view my passions through a new lens. Maybe, I thought, the biggest gift I could give my daughters would be to embrace my own interests and creative endeavors. Testing that theory, I took a ballet class I’d long dreamed about, made jewelry, launched a website. But most important, I embarked on these activities with only the slightest trace of mom guilt (as opposed to the avalanche I typically felt).

I was calling up my best self, and in the process, it seemed, my two daughters were finding theirs as well. As kids are prone to do, they mimicked me. If I read or listened to music or painted, they wanted to do the same. I was happier and more relaxed. They were, too.

So enamored I was of this new state that, when tasked with launching D Moms, I made Schwartzman’s words the driving inspiration for an entire magazine. (Luckily I had a boss and mentor in Christine Allison who also championed this philosophy. See page 41.)

The result is the magazine that you hold in your hands, which I hope will inspire your own “channeling Talia” moment. You won’t find advice about toddler milestones or sleep training in these pages; rather D Moms is a publication about nourishing you, believing that if you live your best life, so will your children.

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So why have I been mulling over these words? Well, the truth is, I’m doing a lousy job of nurturing myself of late. In fact, I’m failing miserably. Time with girlfriends, yoga, regular haircuts…all relegated to the back burner. But the final nail in the coffin occurred on Monday when I officially “quit” my beloved jewelry making class after missing three weeks in a row due to kid-related activities (i.e. homework/volleyball/gymnastics/ballet/art class/book club).

I need to tap into my inner Talia, big time. It’s for a reset.

Given that my biggest obstacle is time, I think I’m going to have to come at this with a different approach. No more three hour weekly classes…that’s just not doable right now, with a full-time job and two littles. Instead I’m going to try and carve out 30 minutes a day, just 30, to feed my brain or soul (or whatever might need to be fed the most at the appointed time). Maybe it’s a quick walk around the neighborhood instead of scanning my e-mail in the morning, an afternoon coffee with a friend in lieu of surfing the web, or ditching the laundry in favor of tucking into an actual book. I’m going small (it’s my only option). I’ll let you know how it goes.

So tell me, how do you nurture yourself? What’s the best thing you’ve done for yourself today/this week/this month?