MaMagazine, a magazine about motherhood Chiaroscuro

Under the mother, who spends the night awake with the child, who wakes up every day to make breakfast for the children and take them to school, who cleans the spilled juice on the kitchen table again and again, on the floor, on the sofa, under the mother, who finds bread cakes and pastries in every little corner of the house. Beyond the radiator, on the stroller, on the bed cushions – I’m the second to scream in despair and desire. The balance that underpins this mother – that we are all mothers in the world – is questionable in the loneliness of her home when she holds her children in her arms and there is nothing beyond this present, so small, so everyday. From time to time, this other self appears in the form of pain, pressure in the chest, a scar on the skin, or a deep disgust for life. And one wonders: is this just me?

Something like this must have occurred to Victoria Gabaldon when she started imagining the idea of ​​creating her own room for mothers. “Because of my two mothers, I felt very disappointed. “I felt very alone in this, even though I was surrounded by people.” Gabaldon first worked in the advertising world and later in a recording company, and both were incompatible with raising their two children: Juliet, 11, and Dario, 6. A lifelong desire for writing and motherhood gave him. The idea and power to believe he could do it. Thus was born in 2019 MaMagazine, a website about motherhood from a cultural perspective, with two years of digital activity and crowdfundingMade the leap on paper.

When I asked Victoria about the day-to-day and DIY behind her project, she told me that MaMagazine was initially her unpaid job, while devoting hours to other paid jobs. “This magazine is rigged in many cafes in Madrid, with many hours of zoom and is my living room, as well as my office. My kitchen is a warehouse. ”

There is a space on the internet dedicated to motherhood and creativity where Victoria interviews writers and artists. I read all these interviews from top to bottom, I read them after the magazine came out and there is something that reminds me of when I started La tribu, my personal project on feminist literature: A woman who gets tired of being alone decides to open her own room to other women who Like Marton, as behind a digital window, they find space between the byte walls where it accompanies itself.

There is a question that is repeated in these interviews: “What was your job like before and after motherhood? The predecessor me and the present me stand in the way, trying to fill in the gaps of frustration and desire. Worth to read them, to read the sincere voices of all these creators who saw the division of their identities. In the interview, writer and translator Blanca Gago admits that when she became pregnant with her eldest daughter, she became fully involved in parenting. He had two children very close to each other and buried writing, translation and literature, all of which were such an important part of him.

“For four or five years I lived in the fog of intense farming, sleepless nights, daily life with two small children and working part-time. I could barely concentrate, I did not have the mental space I need to write, to create. However, this has changed over time: when my children grew up and I was able to regulate myself and sleep better, I was given a new space to write, translate, reflect … It was here that all the creative power that was brewing in them was brewing. The years came to the fore and I started working with new and amazing enthusiasm. ”

Kiaroscuro

Little is said about motherhood Chiaroscuro, the brutal loneliness experienced by mothers trying to move their children forward into a world that questions and constantly questions them. But there is even less talk about the creative power of motherhood. Both Victoria and Blanca have developed their most personal and satisfying projects since motherhood. And this is something that is repeated in many creators. In another interview, writer Pilar Quintana admits that motherhood has given her depth and knowledge. “It made me think about understanding myself and discovering aspects of myself that I could only study because I am a mother.

The first issue of the paper magazine features an interview with writer and editor Iria Maranon, who is amazed at her sensitivity and naturalness. Two women who meet to talk about motherhood, but above all, about themselves and the role of daughters. Victoria lost her father in 2019 while her mother was undergoing lymphoma treatment, and one day while she was at the school gates waiting for her children, she ran into Iria, who was taking her daughters to the same school.

Victoria says in the interview that she was afraid of death, had anxiety attacks, because of which the terrible pain in her chest was so strong that she needed to run home and need to breathe. But he could not, his daughters were about to leave, and so Iria approached him to ask how he was, and when Victoria told him what was happening to him, Iria told him part of his personal story: in the middle. He lost his mother during childbirth with an 11-day-old baby and a 3-year-old daughter. A few days later, Victoria’s mother died and she could not remember Iria’s words and the story, which was “like a heartfelt hug, as if Iram had covered me with a thick dark velvet blanket.”

Elena Ferrante says in her latest book In the fieldsReading Adriana Cavarero’s book gave her the key to the conspiracy and relationship between these two friends in her tetralogy. A wonderful friend. While reading Cavarero, he realized the narrative nature of female friendship. Something similar happens with MaMagazine. It is a sincere hug, it works as a mechanism of mutual understanding: someone else knows your story and in turn can tell its own. So behind the mother, who gets up early and writes a few hours before the children roll their eyes, stands another mother who will read this text and feel less alone.