Chapter 10 Angeni Luna
Angeni Luna
A society that tells a mother she has anxiety because she doesn’t want to be away from her child is a broken society.
In the caption, Angeni wrote about how natural it was for a mother to be with her baby around the clock.
She explained how humans are born premature compared to other mammals—roughly twelve months too early, according to some research.
In an ideal world, gestation would be twenty-one months—nearly two years.
Horse foals, for instance, come out of the womb practically galloping.
Same with giraffes. The problem is our brains.
Human babies cannot gestate any longer because their heads would become too big to fit through the birth canal.
Angeni liked to educate her followers about how this intense connection doesn’t just apply to the baby’s first few months of life, but also to the first few years.
In her “Ask me anything” stories, so many people inquired about Angeni’s plans to have another child, and she always took this as an opportunity to explain that true infancy is a three-year process, so she would wait three years before considering adding another child to their family.
She did feel like another soul, a boy this time, was calling her to be his mother, but these first three years of Freya’s life would only be dedicated to Freya.
If more parents operated with this mentality, more children would receive the care and attention they needed to thrive.
If more people followed Angeni’s teachings, the world would be a better place.
The response to this particular post was especially enthusiastic, which signaled to Angeni that she had again uncovered something about modern motherhood that required collective attention.
Omg preach. I am so sick of people telling me I need to chill out and take time away from the baby. I Want to Be With My Baby
Was literally just telling my husband this. Our baby is two months old and he thinks we should start day care
tbh I think moms who Want to be away from their babies are the ones society should be worrying about
my friend is going back to work next week and her baby is only 3 months old. I don’t get it and am so happy I get to stay home
It was responses like these that eased Angeni’s occasional imposter syndrome and assured her that, yes, she did have every right and reason to write a book.
Angeni had a lengthy phone call with the reputable literary agent, Elizabeth Conroy, during which Elizabeth showered Angeni with praise that made her whole body feel warm, the hairs on her arms standing on end in excited anticipation.
Angeni signed a contract with Elizabeth’s agency the next day.
“You are going to be huge,” the agent said.
“You already are huge. But this will be a whole new level.”
Angeni had assumed she’d need to write a book proposal.
In the past, when she’d toyed with the idea of writing a book, her Google research had informed her that a comprehensive proposal was the first step.
Elizabeth said that wouldn’t be necessary.
Just two days later, there was a bidding war between two major publishers.
All Elizabeth had to do was show them how many followers Angeni had between her personal account, the Conscious Couples account, and the Mother Nurture account.
This was how the publishing industry worked these days, Elizabeth explained.
The two publishers threw out six-figure offers like they were nothing.
After a round of intense negotiations, Angeni accepted the slightly higher bid of $200,000.
They told her she could have a year to write the book, which seemed like both an eternity and no time at all.
It had been gnawing at her how she’d been so adamant about having all her attention on Freya for the first three precious years. She had instructed herself not to commit to any major work projects during those years.
The night before, lying in bed next to Erik, she’d asked him, “Am I betraying myself? Am I betraying Freya?”
“I think you would be betraying all of us if you didn’t write this book,” he’d said.
She hadn’t thought of it that way.
“Sometimes, life gives us opportunities that we did not expect. Spirit works through us in ways we could not imagine,” he’d said.
“Freya won’t remember this time,” he’d said.
She never understood parents who said that—She won’t even remember this.
The body carried memories that the brain did not.
Would Freya feel her mother’s divided attention, her dedication to something other than mothering?
Erik wouldn’t understand these kinds of concerns, so she didn’t bother talking through them.
She had to reason this out with herself.
“Think about how the universe brought us Sitka,” he’d said. “We didn’t expect that either. And look how beautiful it’s been to have her here. Maybe the whole reason for Sitka coming to us was to support you during this time of creative production.”
“Maybe.”
Spirit had a way of doing this—bringing you what you needed before you knew you needed it. It was often only in retrospect that you saw the magic.
She needed to discuss a formal plan with Sitka for Freya’s care while the book was in progress. They needed a structure that would feel right to all of them—Angeni, Freya, and Sitka.
They were in the kitchen together now, the three of them plus Aurora.
Angeni was starting a batch of chicken-liver paté for Freya.
She put the chicken liver in a pot of bone broth and turned up the heat to a simmer.
When it was cooked through, she would add raw butter and a pinch of sea salt before putting everything in the blender, then pouring the mixture into tiny glass jars to store in the fridge.
Whenever she posted these meals, she got a slew of comments from people like gross and you feed that to your kid?
and I highly doubt your baby eats that. Her baby did eat it, though—not enthusiastically at first, but she ate it.
And that was because Angeni was smart and intentional about how she introduced foods to Freya.
She was focused on foods to help Freya’s brain develop and give her a healthy microbiome and set her up for a lifetime of healthy eating.
She had no plans to introduce anything sweeter than a yam for several months.
This was a mistake most parents made. They gave their babies fruits and yogurts and then were mystified later when they refused to eat broccoli and chicken.
“I’m thinking I should include some recipes in the book,” Angeni said.
Freya was in her bouncer on the floor. It was more of an activity center than a bouncer, the seat surrounded by various things to capture her attention—a spinning butterfly, an elephant rattle, a turtle mirror, a frog that lit up.
Angeni worried it was too much stimulation, that it would wire her brain to crave increasingly higher levels of excitement, chasing the dopamine dragon like the brains of so many other small children.
But it was a gift from Matt, and she felt awful not using it.
He didn’t have a lot of money, but a simple Google search told her he’d spent nearly a hundred dollars on this toy contraption.
So she let Freya sit in it for about a half hour a day, max.
It was obvious she liked it, which was both heartwarming and unsettling.
“Recipes would be such a nice touch,” Aurora said.
“I’ll have to ask my agent what she thinks.”
“I mean, that’s what you’re about, right? Nurturing. Emotionally and physically,” Aurora said.
Aurora knew her well, but she would always be a cheerleader, never a critic. Angeni turned to Sitka to seek her opinion.
“Sitka, what do you think?”
“About what?” she said.
Sitka seemed distracted lately. Angeni got the sense sometimes that she was itching to leave, that something outside The Land was pulling at her.
She’d asked Erik if he’d noticed, but he said no.
He wasn’t nearly as intuitive as Angeni, though.
He could be so blissfully unaware of things that Angeni saw so clearly.
It was one of her greatest frustrations with him—she was often miles ahead, waiting for him to catch up to her.
“Recipes. For my book,” Angeni said.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Sitka said.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Aurora reiterated.
They had reached a dead end on that topic, so Angeni decided to bring up the childcare arrangement for Freya.
“Sitka, I wanted to talk to you about a set schedule for you to help with Freya while I’m working on the book,” Angeni said.
Aurora went to the stove to tend to the chicken liver, though it didn’t need much tending.
Angeni knew she was still a bit hurt that she wouldn’t be the primary caretaker for Freya while Angeni worked.
Aurora loved Freya, but Angeni sensed Freya had a more natural connection with Sitka.
Besides, what better way to integrate Sitka more into their community than to have her help with the baby?
“Okay,” Sitka said.
Sitka sat on the floor next to the bouncer, her flowy skirt hiked up to her upper thighs, long dark legs stretched out in front of her. Her skin always seemed to be gleaming, probably thanks to the vanilla balm Angeni had made for her and told her to use liberally all over her body.
“I’m thinking of turning the sunroom into my writing room. I’ll just add a desk and make a little creativity altar,” she said.
She would start collecting things from the forest for her altar—heart-shaped stones and leaves and bird feathers, anything she found inspiring.
“I love that idea,” Aurora said, turning around to share her enthusiasm.
“Okay,” Sitka said again. She was now playing with Freya, pulling back and releasing the little elephant rattle, much to Freya’s delight.