Taking Charge of Your Creativity

Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler is a book that every woman of child-bearing age should have. I know I could have really used this book several years ago when I desperately wanted a child but my life circumstances would not allow it. I lived in fear that once my situation changed, once my husband and I were stable enough, we would not be able to have a child. "There's no way you can possibly know if you're fertile until you start trying," I cried. But I was wrong.

This book dispels myths (including the most infamous one that all women operate on a 28-day cycle and therefore must ovulate on day 14) and gives women tools for understanding their bodies and cycles. Until I read this book, I had no concept of how many hormones were at play at any given moment in my cycle. The charts helped me see that my body is in constant flux, and with a few simple notes I can start to keep track of my pains, moods, and, um, fluids.

Birth control has always wreaked havoc on my body--and I've tried everything. This book talks about natural birth control, which is not the same as the Rhythm method, and shows how a woman can track her cycle and manage her fertility in the least invasive way possible. I'd much rather stick a thermometer in my mouth every morning than something else you-know-where.

This book has made me think about other areas of my life I've allowed to be controlled by fear, myth, and happenstance. Namely, my writing life. Though I've tried to create structured writing time, I still, sometimes, bow to the myth that the muse cannot be compelled to show up, that you must take inspiration when it comes. Often this has left me feeling helpless and in despair when I couldn't find the time or impulse to write.

Before reading this book, I had thought that all the charts and graphs would impede the excitement and mystery of conception. Not so. I should have known, but ladies and gents, information is SEXY. The more I know, the more I'm open to mystery and possibility. It's the same for making a baby as it is for making a poem.

A ritual is something systematic that becomes endowed with meaning. So saith the muse, stick that thermometer in your mouth and pick up that pen, and write!