Chouette Quotes

“I prefer to speak in metaphor: That way, no logic can trap me, and no rule can bind me, and no fact can limit me or decide for me what’s possible.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“Housekeeping is nothing more than a losing encounter with entropy.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“We're the oldest love triangle in the world: mother, father, child.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“I begin to understand what a gift I've been given, to have been chosen for this task. The truth overwhelms me, and humbles me. The birds are telling me that my life's work, as your mother, will be to teach you how to be yourself- and to honor however much of the wild world you have in you, owl-baby- rather than mold you to be what I want you to be, or what your father wants you to be.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“Is life nothing more than a continuous retreat from our true selves, as we're hammered into shape by special schools and social cues?”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“So. This is motherhood. I ponder it. I ponder the lonely, cruel, relentless obligation of motherhood. I ponder the loving, soft, yielding wonder of motherhood. I ponder the mystery of who you are, little stranger, and who you will become...

I love you. I love you. To habituate myself to the idea of loving you, I say it many times. You're ugly. I tried not to think that last thought, but the thought snuck in. It was easier to love you before you were born. I'm afraid of you. You disgust me. I've made a terrible mistake.

I'm your mother.
I chose it.
I love you.

I remind myself that all firstborn things are hideously ugly. We sit and rock together until it grows dark all around. At some point, there in the dark, after staring at you for so long, and after it gets so dark in this room that I can't see you at all, you become very beautiful to me, and I say yes to being your mother.
I say: yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.
Why do I say yes? I'll never know.
It could be of my own free will.
It could be that you've injected me with your little talon. It could be that your talon is dipped in the poison of mother-love.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“Is this what it means to be a mother, then? To be in constant, irrational conflict with one's own child? To be constantly challenged by the stubborn will of a creature who doesn't respond to logic or reason, and who always wins?”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“You're my fate and you're my dire necessity. You're my refuge when I'm lost, and losing you would kill me. Your flights and falls are dreamlike and perfect and I'm blessed to be the one to witness them.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“Every day you wrench me toward a different world altogether: an older world, filled with wild, perfect creatures, singing in the dark.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“And on the day that you are born- on the day when I first look down on your pinched-red, tiny-clawed, outraged little body lying naked and intubated in a box- I won't have the slightest idea about who you are, or what I will become.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“I wonder how long I’ve been the victim of subliminal messaging from a fetus. I wonder if it goes this way for all pregnant mothers: At first we fully recognize the existential threat that is growing inside us, but gradually evolutionary imperatives overcome the conscious mind’s objection, and the will to reproduce overcomes the will to survive, and the needs of the baby overcome the needs of the host, until the only choice left for us women is to be willing, happy participants in our own destruction.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“As I look out the window in the natural course of our long journey, I come to a startling realization: that the world is populated not only by dog-people, but by all kinds of people, by cow-people and wolf-people, armadillo-people and cat-people, toad-people and nomads, and small-town librarians; and I can see them all out there being themselves, with no one in the world to tell them to be someone else instead.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“A day came when I wandered alone very near to the border where the gloaming met the gleaming.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“Your mother’s mind is filled with a cacophony of voices, all crying out the same lamentation: “I’m a terrible mother, I’m a terrible mother.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“It’s a wonder that any woman ever agrees to be a mother, when the fruits of motherhood are inevitably conflict and remorse, to be followed by death and disembowelment.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“My life becomes a row of tiny memory-pearls, strung along a limpid string.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“People say to themselves, 'Oh, I must stay in touch with that poor woman, stuck at home with that poor-poor baby, I will make a point to call on her one day,' but the days and the weeks keep coming on, until even the kindliest of people allow themselves to forget their good intentions, because it makes life easier all around not to be bothered by your good intentions.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“Now that we’re alone together, the owl-baby gets busy-busy whispering in my ear, trying to convince me to give up. It tells me it’s prepared to use force, but would prefer my full cooperation. I pray for a miscarriage.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“He doesn’t care that the mood was different to begin with because he knows that nothing important ever happens unless he is there to witness it.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“I'm wondering whether each word and thought, from the time our mothers first birth us out into this world, is prompted by a language-approximation device that most of us happen to be born with, and whether this impression we have, that we think original thoughts, is nothing but a happy illusion. I wonder if we are born programmed to behave as we do, and to say what we say.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“Is it so easy, then, to recover from our mistakes? To have a do-over? The idea heartens me. The little dog is alive. It's as if my choices from the past have been erased and I can begin with a clean slate.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“Maybe I resent you a little.
Once this first small thought of maybe-resentment creeps in, it acts like a fast poison.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette