No one prepared me.
No one is talking about it.
Like birth, you never get used to it.
Domino Kirke
You realize just how close we are to death, and you cant take anything for granted after that.
Kirke realizes this isnt typical fodder for an interview.
How do we hold all these truths at once and not collapse?
she asks somewhat rhetorically, somewhat not.
In 2012 she cofounded the childbirth collective and community spaceCarriage House Birth.
In 2018 she cofounded the community space Grand Street Healing Project in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
I had a crash course in intimacy, Kirke says of her work as a teacher and doula.
And I was there just giving, giving, giv, she says before taking a breath between tears.
I had my son at home while I was giving to others.
There was a lot of imbalance [in my life].
And [my parents] would fight and leave me to think, Was I bad?
Talking about childhood sexual abuse in a song?
No, thank you!
she says of peoples immediate reaction to the subject matter.
But were only harming each other by not talking about it.
There is a loss of self [during motherhood] but a renewal as well, says Kirke.
Thats why people in the birth community like to call it threshold work.
Because birth is lifeanddeath.
Its all of it.
The Most Familiar Staris out April 18.
