A Lonely Discourse

Abstract

This performative text is a study of relationships at multiple levels. I ask readers to (re)consider the desire and possibility for connection in various types of relationships—romantic and intertextual as well as relationships between mothers and children, mothers and others, readers and writers, presence and absence. In relating my experiences of single motherhood, I raise questions about the possibility for creative communication scholarship—performative writing in particular—to perform the relational work of connecting us to others with whom we do not share similar life experiences or situations.