Just two people talking

As the first piece back at work sits here, almost completely written but for a bit of polishing and the always agonizing editing process, I reflect on the amazing changes that motherhood has brought about in how I approach and report a story. For years, I believed that I needed to report within a matrix, from a completely quiet place, with minimal distractions. As a business writer, this was always possible. Workplaces might seem like war zones, but this is a strictly symbolic sense. Quiet interviews are always possible, expected, even. When I quit writing more than a year ago, I was pretty sure that when I got back to work, I wouldn't write about business anymore.

So, here, looking at this personality profile that has not a single number or balance sheet mentioned in it, I feel my career has taken a turn. The circumstances surrounding its composition were unavoidable. I often had Charlotte on my hip when I was calling sources. She always wanted to be part of the conversation. And I've wondered if this was acceptable, but it always seemed to make interviews go more smoothly. The reporter-source rapport turned into just two people talking, which helped everything.

When reporters were embedded in Iraq, many wondered what would happen to journalism. I think it helped to relax what we think ought to be this distance between writer and subject. Being trained in folklore, where fieldwork is king, I have always questioned why a reporter can't just be a person. Colleagues have asked whether it's possible to maintain journalistic objectivity if the writer is being a person with other people. I think good journalism is all about being able to step back onto the shore after you've been immersed.

From now on, no matter what kind of stories I write, I will always know that's okay for me to be a person first. Here, with my desk shoved into the corner of the dining room (the old office became a nursery when Charlotte came along), with 2-year-old art all around, including a box we made into a printer cozy with paint and glued tissue paper and collage, I am truly embedded in life. This will be a wonderful thing.