by June Lin-Arlow, LMFT

As the new year arrives, big things are changing, and I’m happy to make a reappearance this month to share with you all that Luba Palter is taking over the helm as Editor-in-Chief of Impulse. Luba has been a long-time member of NCSPP, previously on the Events Committee and a participant in the Intensive Study Group for two years. She has a private practice in Berkeley and also works at Kaiser. As we got to know each other in preparation for her tenure as Editor, she shared her poetry and her interest in themes of immigration and belonging based on her personal experiences as an immigrant from Russia. I am excited that she’ll bring a new tone and perspective to this newsletter starting next month.

I gave birth to my daughter in September, and these days I’m mainly doing things one-handed or in 37-minute fragments while she sleeps (the length of her sleep cycle). Life with an infant is hazy and repetitive - days blurring into nights - the relentless cycle of feeding, sleeping, and diapers. My body is no longer mine, and my needs are consumed by her pure expressions of desire. The breast is the center of her world; she came out of the womb making the “hunger face” and has been looking for it since. For food and comfort, sometimes only for comfort, screaming at it in frustration when it produces milk. Every day there is drama around the breast. Love, frustration, desperation, and hate, all at the same time.

Slowly, I’m coming out of the haze and opening my private practice in San Francisco next month. I’ll still be around NCSPP as a member, taking classes or writing articles. I’ll see you around!