This is a little painting about neural pruning, a fascinating phenomenon that occurs throughout our lives, but to a particularly astounding and thorough degree during and immediately following pregnancy. In 2016, Elseline Hoekzema, Ph.D., a senior neuroscientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, published a study proving that “pregnancy renders substantial changes in brain structure, primarily reductions in gray matter volume in regions subserving social cognition.” In other words, mothers’ brains undergo a remodeling process so extensive that it can be seen on MRI scans. Even a computer algorithm can correctly determine whether a woman has borne a child based on these images. We often hear talk of “pregnancy brain” or “mommy brain,” but few (if any) mothers I have spoken to are aware that this is a biological fact of immense significance. The neurological changes are greater even than those of puberty, and everyone is familiar with the transformation of children into teens and how it seems to alter the fabric of the personality.
I found this rather staggering bit of information to be somewhat comforting when, following the birth of my son, I was unable to hold information in my head for more than five minutes. Something as simple as cooking an egg and a piece of toast at the same time required great concentration. Throw in a phone call or a crying newborn, and something was bound to catch on fire. I could tell that the weight assigned to certain things in my mind had changed; the texture felt different. It was also very clear to me that I had apparently limitless bandwidth available for loving my child in a heart and mind that previously seemed rather full. But unless you are an almost problematically curious and research-obsessed individual (this is me), or work in the field of neurology, nobody explains to you that the part of your brain that previously cared about your shoe collection and the location of your car keys will be quite literally disassembled and jettisoned, replaced with newly available resources for focusing on the survival of your offspring.
This makes absolute sense in terms of evolution. However, it’s also very strange to feel as though you are living in the same house, but your view from every window has changed. I am not sure where those former parts of ourselves go. I was pondering this question as I washed dishes one day, gazing out the window above the sink. On the windowsill was this clipping from a ficus tree I’d had for almost 23 years (the only plant I’ve ever kept alive for any extended period of time. It truly does represent my former life). I had trimmed it because the tree was reaching and lanky and putting its energy into extremities that were not serving it. A good, assertive pruning did it a world of good, once it put out new leaves and stopped looking like a dead twig. But I couldn’t bring myself to toss the clippings, so I rooted them instead. I gave a few to friends, but this one had been simply existing in an odd stasis on the windowsill for eight or so months, forgotten, no longer relevant, but still very much alive. I smiled at the little sprig of tree and took it out to the studio to paint it.