A few months ago, I wrote about resources for people who were on the fence about if they wanted to have kids or not. Perhaps it is something that you are ruminating on? In this weird age of perceived expansion of choice, the question itself seems daunting. We are told that we can do everything, and have it all, but can we?
I reached out to Sheila Heti a while back with zero expectations on if she would write back to me. When I read her work, it feels like she is speaking about my personal life experience. About me, about her life, and about humanity all in the same moment. You could say that I am a fan. Or just her work makes me feel uniquely understood.
It’s perhaps disrespectful to start a review of sorts with the headline that Heti says she doesn’t like her work being reduced to - the question, “Should I have a baby?” Because it is so much more than that. And I agree - but I also want to take a moment to sit with the idea that this question is inherently reductive. I am not sure I know why. And it is too late to ask. I assume it is because the themes in the book can be translated and applied far beyond the concept of “motherhood.” Maybe there is an opposition to the perceived limitations of the term. I feel it, but I don’t know if I have the words for it. Heti’s opposition is important.
I choose to start with it because it is currently a topic that I am sorting through. And because you might be too.
We talk about several of her projects - for she seems like a scientist trying to get to the core truth of existence. Heti enjoys fiction because there are fewer rules, and one can be free to explore topics that go beyond reality. There is a different sense of accountability. She says she has a bad memory. I try to argue that the weight of her memory might be located in an alternative form of reality. But yes, I concede they are different forms of reality and in this moment, we do need a distinction between them.
Pure Colour is a book that circles ideas of grief, loss, and comfort. It directly confronts choice and expectations. This book is for you if you have experienced unrequited love. Parental love. Loss of a loved one. This book longs to reclaim the narrative of life and death as beautiful. As one in the same. It does so naturally, and the narrator, Mira, makes a choice to move away from despair and towards a different spectrum of colour.
After the interview, I wrote to her because there were lots of questions I “forgot” while I fumbled nervously through my brief time with her. One was, is there a good reason to have a child?
I don't know if there are good reasons to have a child, or good reasons not to. It's not very helpful to say but a person should just do what they want to do. I'm teaching a course called Fate and Chance now and so all these things are in my mind, but essentially I think whatever life we choose for ourselves winds up being the right one. Unless it's a total disaster. But it's usually okay even if it is.
"Should I have a baby?"