When I left the house on Pace Street and moved to Vermont, I became a writer. I became a writer because I was so broken down by early motherhood that I stopped fearing criticism long enough to throw my work out into the world. Moving into an old farmhouse, I began collecting again, amassing things I thought reflected my aesthetic. My new life. Quilts, jadeite bowls, glass bottles, chairs worthy of a napping cat and a writer working with a baby asleep on her shoulder.
Over at Ploughshares, Megan Mayhew Bergman writes a beautiful personal essay on the writing life and the habit of collecting.
