A Sabbath Life: One Woman's Search for Wholeness

At age 40, successful journalist and author Hirsch (Home in the Heart of the City) underwent a spiritual meltdown that left her struck by how, in her myopic focus on work, she had let the replenishing power of contemplating beauty slip away from her. Having watched her mother forsake her artistic ambitions to raise her children, the young, feminist Hirsch determined to fully realize her career aspirations But her fear of being subsumed by motherhood created other problems: ""Beneath the structure imposed by my work, my life has no shape."" Her brother's sudden death heightened her inchoate sense of emptiness, setting Hirsch on a path toward ""wholeness,"" which she defines as a confluence of work, relationships and a quest for ""Self."" Among other life changes, she decided (with her husband) to have a baby, and unapologetically presents the contradictions in her choices. New motherhood, for instance, complicates her quest for ""Self"": ""I became a divided self.... Work became objectified.... So... have my relationships."" Hirsch sometimes ignores the socioeconomic privilege that allowed her to stop working to rediscover herself, and confesses envy of her minimum-wage Honduran child minder for ""integrating spirit, heart, and... labors."" Still, this often astute and beautiful blend of feminism and postfeminism holds some insights for women schooled in the 1970s counterculture who feel unfulfilled on the proving grounds of the patriarchy, as well as for older first-time mothers. (Apr. 18)