The following is excerpted with permission from Send Me Into the Woods Alone: Essays on Motherhood by Erin Pepler (Invisible Publishing, 2022).
The joyful chaos of a family home is something I dreamed of, and it remains the place I?m happiest and most at ease. There?s nothing better than puttering around my kitchen while the kids make plasticine animals at the table and my husband wanders in and out of the backyard, commenting on the state of the grass. It?s always too dry, a little long, a bit patchy here and there; my husband thinks about the yard more in one afternoon than I have in my entire life. In many ways, domesticity is heaven. It?s comfort and warmth and habit, a place of acceptance and abiding love. Home is where the heart is, and my family is what fills my heart. That said, I regularly fantasize about running off into the woods alone.
I don?t want to disappear forever?I?m not looking to shave my head, change my name, and charter a sailboat to whisk me away. I just need a break, not from any one person or thing, but from life, along with the demands of motherhood and marriage and being an adult in the world.
Oh, to sit quietly in a place where no one can find me and demand a glass of apple juice. Somewhere I don?t have to feign interest in our lawn?s hydration levels. Where there are no bills in the mailbox and silence doesn?t mean a room in my house is being destroyed by those very children I love so much. A place with no email, no telephone, and no external ex...