It’s tempting to imagine that writers are creating from glossy white offices, with fresh cut flowers, and lattes in artful cups. It can feel like if that’s not your reality you’re not “doing it right”

Hein Koh

I was very inspired by the artist, Hein Koh, when she shared an image of nursing her twins while working; it was so very close to my reality (you can read her inspiring commentary here). My own picture of mothering while working is one of my favorite pictures. The work I do, both for my business and for Improvised Life, is often done with a two-year-old at my side. This can sometimes be distracting, but often brings joy and silliness to more serious work.

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I want to break down the image that lifestyle bloggers are pushing: that websites are written at pristine desks with a few ornamental succulents. This feeds into classism and elitism, and also can create insidious, internal blocks in those that may want to create.

Mira Keras
Mira Keras

You don’t need to have a magazine-worthy lifestyle to have something to say. Work with what you have. The reality is cooler than the fantasy. You can do it, and you can do it from your couch/farm/laboratory/kitchen.

Mira Keras
Mira Keras

Mira Keras

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4 replies on “Work Wherever, However You Need

  1. Thank you so much for this article. We need more articles like this to bring some reality back to our “glamorous” at-home jobs. As a mom who also works from home doing online writing, marketing and blogging with a baby and feeling like everyone else holds a secret to doing this effortlessly – this article was refreshing and inspiring.

  2. BRAVA. Life is NOW, work is NOW, and the balance achieved by pretending our surroundings are perfectly still in an arrangement of our choosing is just what you said: bullshit. Balance takes place in motion, as we move through a world of many moving pieces. My sons are now 18 and 23, and they both grew up intimately familiar with my woodworking and writing. The older one is now starting to see the benefits in his own life.

  3. My mother didn’t work when I was a kid (it was the fifties) but she made a lot of things in our house. And that was the best time, hanging out while she was doing stuff: sewing, designing, cooking…
    How lucky for these little daughters and sons to see and be with their parents working in the world…

  4. Beautiful image of Hein Koh nursing her twins. Love this website.

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