“The midwife told us that we each needed a mantra for every time the world of motherhood felt like it was a template that we didn’t fit into. Mine was ‘I am the mother of Evangeline.'”
Brandi Carlile, Broken Horses
It’s not often I become intoxicated by someone’s voice, just listening to them speak. I recently finished listening to Brandi Carlile’s new Memoir, Broken Horses. From start to finish I was mesmerized and transfixed by her words and songs, woven together to tell the story of her life, thus far.
Brandi and I share the same age (both born in 1981). While our upbringings could not have looked more different, our inner journeys bear striking similarities. Brandi grew up in a rural town outside Seattle, Washington. She moves 14 times in her first 14 years. Brandi’s family was rich with love and poor with means. She drops out of high school in order to pursue a career in music, almost exclusively self-taught. Brandi is gifted beyond imagination and will eventually catch national attention and go on to become the most nominated woman at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019. Beyond her musical talent though, I think what enraptures me is her raw truth and gift for storytelling.
Like me, Brandi grows up in the ’90’s. There are no cell phones for us in middle school or high school. We are taunted by our own inner critics more than we are by social media. Bullying is alive and well but it is easier to retreat into our own spaces and hide from the scrolling and obsessive jeering that comes from toxic online commentary. At the same time, we don’t have many public role models when it comes to the queer community. For Brandi, Ellen DeGeneres is monumental. Ellen’s “coming out episode” airs on April 30, 1997 when Brandi and I are 16. Ellen is the first gay person Brandi ever “meets” and she gives her the confidence to come out in high school. She secretly records Ellen’s “coming out episode” on a cassette tape and years later she ironically has Ellen sign it while she is a guest on her show.
I am far from ready to “come out” in 1997 but I do subconsciously archive this moment in my memory bank, which over the next 6 or 7 years will give me the confidence to do the same. It’s funny because even today at 40, listening to Brandi speak so openly about her queer identity and life as an artist, it feels like she is speaking to me at 16 years old. She is giving my 16 year-old self permission to break free from her shell just a littler earlier.
Likewise, it is so powerful to hear Brandi share her story of meeting the woman who would become her wife and their journey starting a family. It normalizes these life-cycle moments in a queer context and again speaks to my younger self, giving her permission to keep moving forward, and with the message that she is not alone. Brandi describes in detail how she and her wife, Catherine Carlile, navigate nuanced decisions around fertility, pregnancy, gender roles, conceptions of motherhood, and parenting in a heteronormative world. Her writing and storytelling is brave, fierce and ground-breaking. One storyline that stands out to me is in Chapter 15, “Firewatcher’s Daughter.” During this segment, Brandi speaks openly about the confusion and “irreconcilable grief” that she experiences as the non child-bearing partner and mother who is relegated to an insubordinate role during childbirth classes. She starts developing a complex in what is a heteronormative structure that boxes “LGBTQ couples into a male-female role paradigm that inevitably makes us feel more alone”. Brandi feels “useless and humiliated” by these classes. She is a mother but feels like she needs someone to reassure her of that.
Brandi gives voice to the truth that same-sex parenting is still relatively new and that society needs to humanize these stories because history is happening all around us. She and Catherine ultimately find a new midwife who specializes in “diverse pregnancy situations” and who works with them through the remainder of their pregnancy. In another poignant scene, the midwife challenges them to each develop a mantra for every time they feel shut out of motherhood as they see it. Brandi chooses the mantra, “I am the mother of Evangeline,” (the name of their first daughter) and this lyric will go on to become the anchor of her song, “The Mother” which depicts the role of a mother through her eyes.
Brandi’s parenting story, while unique, bears a familiar resemblance to my own. While I do carry my daughter, there is a feeling that I still have to prove myself worthy as a parent and a mother. It’s a never-ending coming out process when I share that my daughter has two moms. There isn’t a great template for us (which in some ways is liberating) and we are figuring it out as we go. We struggle with all the same issues that I imagine most couples face when it comes to division of labor, paid work vs unpaid work and the need to feel validated and appreciated for our contributions. What’s refreshing is that Brandi gives voice to a community of burgeoning LGBTQ+ parents who are yearning to see and be seen. We are here and we will continue to “pave our own way,” one spilled milk bottle at a time.
In the meantime, as a nod to Rosh Hashanah and a New Year’s sermon of sorts, I want to thank Brandi Carlile for awakening something in me that needed to be poked. From her courage to speak so openly about her life, to her creative and beautiful storytelling, I am inspired to keep writing and sharing my voice into the new year. So in that spirit, may this be a year for us all of pushing our creative boundaries and sharing our stories with a little more tenacity and grit than before. L’Shanah Tovah.
Taking a Pause at 40 