I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet By Shauna Niequist

Introduction

I’m sitting at my desk, looking out at the Close—that’s what they call the
green space in the center of the seminary where we live. Our apartment is
on the third floor, our bedroom windows face south, and I’ve wedged a tiny
child-sized desk between our bed and the bookcases, because catching the
light is always my priority.

This morning, Aaron and Henry took the subway to Henry’s first
morning of high school orientation. Henry is tall, broad-shouldered,
handsome. He’s funny and kind and wears dress pants and has fabulously
long, shaggy hair that he’s forever sweeping out of his eyes. The week I
was offered a contract to write my first book was the same week I found out
I was pregnant with him, and this morning I’m feeling the full circle of this
—these books and stories, the writer I have become inextricably entwined
with the mother I became when Henry was born.

This book you’re holding is one I’ve been writing and rewriting for
years, and as much as I’ve struggled with it, the struggle has healed me,
helped me, and forced me to make sense of my story and our world—as
much as anyone can. Being a writer means being committed to paying
attention, to walking through the world as a noticer. It means finding
language for the seemingly unspeakable, using words to bridge the divides
between us, telling stories that narrate and renarrate who we are in the
world and what the world means to us.

One of the challenges of this book was defining the edges. Can it be
about this too, and also this? How far can it stretch before it’s just a junk
drawer? But looking back, I’ve pushed the edges in this way in every book
I’ve written—a book about cooking is also about babies and friendship and
prayer; a book about celebration is also about losing your job and
forgiveness and Paris. Because that’s how life is—interconnected and
multifaceted. We carry around our whole selves—our past and our parents,