An Interview with Jocelyn Jane Cox, Author of Motion Dazzle, a Memoir of Motherhood, Loss and Skating on Thin Ice.
Interview by Sara Weiss
In her debut memoir Motion Dazzle, former competitive figure skater and coach Jocelyn Jane Cox reflects on the deep bond between herself and her mother. She explores a childhood defined by the rigorous demands of training on the ice along with years of sporadic pain and injury, and the sacrifices her mother made to support this pursuit. The book also speaks to “the sandwich generation,” as she recounts the paradox of becoming a new mother while caring for her own mom’s worsening dementia. This is a beautiful book about sacrifices, resilience, loss and the lasting bond between a mother and child.
You write this book as a letter to your son as you toggle back and forth between his zebra-themed first birthday party and your past. This technique skillfully conveys a sense of emotional resonance and intimacy as you explore the ways you were parented and your own journey to become a parent. Can you talk about the voice and how it came to be?
I said from the beginning that I wanted to write a letter to my son and that it wasn’t really “a book” in my mind. Of course, I’ve been writing since I was a kid, and have dreamt of being A Writer for as long as I can remember, so as much as I told myself that it didn’t matter whether or not I ever published it or not, I can admit now that wasn’t entirely true. But conceiving this as a message to my son gave me the permission I needed to compose a story that had been percolating in my head and my heart for several years. So I directed most of the book to him almost as a writing exercise.
I admired my mother and respect how she parented me, yet she withheld a lot of information about her life (much of it painful), requiring me to put a lot of pieces together myself and sometimes… incorrectly. My son, my mother, and I are connected in beautiful, tragic, and coincidental ways, culminating on his first birthday. I wanted to explain this dynamic to him with as much detail as I possibly could.
Through the revision process (and in reaction to some wise advice from a writing friend), I decided to retain the direct address to my son only in the sections about his zebra-themed first birthday party, and in the sections once I am pregnant with him. My goal, as I iterated, was to simultaneously maintain this intimacy, draw readers into the specificity of our relationship, and to pull back, as well, to the comfort of a more conventional first person narration for ease of reading.
The book is in many ways a love letter to your mom as well. She so clearly comes through on the page—the bashful blond with her quiet wit, her sense of style, her elegant curls, her tablescapes, her strength and sacrifices, her love and support of you. The relationship between the two of you is so unique. Was it cathartic for you to write about her?
It was both cathartic and emotionally taxing. I started the first draft on January 1, 2021, deep in the pandemic, when my son was doing zoom school for second grade, so the only time I could write (or find the headspace to write) was after he went to bed. In our quiet house with everyone else asleep from 10pm-1am, I felt as if I was hanging out with my mom, who had been gone for seven years at that point. I had just watched the gorgeous animated film SOUL and the soundtrack captivated me. I ended up honing in on one song called, appropriately, “Just Us” by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Someone had put it on an hour-long loop on Youtube: I queued up that one track on repeat every night. This allowed me to enter a flow state and remember as many moments with her as I could.
The devastating thing about caring for loved ones with memory loss is that we lose them before we actually lose them. I had an amazing relationship with my mother (with some complications), but for a while, those harrowing final years occluded all of the wonderful ones. Writing what would become Motion Dazzle allowed me to reconnect with who she was before dementia took hold. I knew that the opportunity to write these pages was a gift, and perhaps a necessary psychological process for me, no matter what happened next.
You portray your mom’s quiet strength as she coped with early hardships in her life. This also seemed to shape the way she parented you and your brother. You endured so many injuries in your years of training as a competitive skater, and there were times when you wanted to give up—but your mom and your brother often encouraged you to keep going. Can you talk about the theme of resilience in the book?
I was definitely the wimp in my family. I didn’t understand why it was so important to work so hard and why I needed to get hurt along the way. It was a privilege to participate in figure skating and a huge financial outlay for my family, so I constantly felt like I needed to be grateful for it. Even though I didn’t know the term “sunk cost,” I understood that there had been an investment of time, money, and effort that I would ruin if I actually quit the way I often said I would.
I think it’s important for parents to be ultra aware of whether or not sports are actually contributing positively to the mental and physical health of their children. We generally assume that sports are great, focusing on the exercise, the sportsmanship, the team-building, and all of the life lessons. But often there are downsides, too, especially as participation escalates, and the stakes increase. Sports can crush confidence rather than build it, and result in injuries that could impact our kids for the rest of their lives.
I don’t know if my mother knew that she was quoting Nietzsche when she often said, half-jokingly and half-seriously, “That which does not kill you makes you stronger,” but she definitely believed this to her core. Her own childhood didn’t include sports, but it was difficult and devastating in ways I probably only partly comprehend. She was trying to impart resilience, something my brother took to easily, and was more of a struggle for me. If I am a resilient person in my adulthood, I think it’s partially, yes, because of the sport, and how I managed to push through something I often loathed, but it’s probably more due to her constant example as she recovered from divorce, dealt with many health issues along the way, and had to start over multiple times. Through most of it, she could appreciate a “bit of whimsy” and the smaller things, in an effort to make the best of life for her kids and for herself. I see this now as its own kind of strength.
How does this book speak to those who find themselves in the “sandwich generation”—mothers who are simultaneously caring for their parents? What do you hope readers will take from your story?
Motherhood, as we all know, is an imperfect endeavor: we make mistakes, we learn from others, and we try to course-correct. The same is true when caring for our aging parents. Just as every child has unique needs, so do our elders. I hope readers will see and absorb the messiness of caregiving and the impossibility of doing everything right. I’ve come to believe that regret in this situation is inevitable. Writing this book has helped me accept that.
Caring for a newborn and an ailing parent simultaneously is an extreme version of the so-called sandwich generation, but the squeeze is painful at any stage. As distressing as this situation was, my son truly didn’t know what was going on as my mother (his grandmother) declined and passed away. I had to figure out how to play with him, be upbeat with him, and feed him (no small feat), but I didn’t really have to explain much of anything at that young age. More commonly, parents of pre-teens, teens, and young adults find themselves helping their parents transition as they become increasingly dependent — they therefore have to address more nuanced emotions and conversations with their children; a grandchild’s love for their grandparents compounds the grief for the whole family and so often it’s the mothers who bear the weight of this. My heart goes out to anyone dealing with this in any form. If anything, I hope my story inspires people to find moments of joy, light, and maybe even some whimsy during (and despite) the darkest times.
Jocelyn Jane Cox competed in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships four times and coached the sport for over two decades. Among other publications, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Newsweek, Good Men Project, WIRED, The Offing, The Linden Review, Cleaver, Litro Magazine, and Colorado Review. Her creative nonfiction was included in the anthology Awakenings: Stories of Body & Consciousness, ELJ Editions, 2023). Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her book, Motion Dazzle: A Memoir of Motherhood, Loss, and Skating on Thin Ice (Vine Leaves Press 9/30/2025) explores motherhood, sports participation, and caregiving. She lives with her son and husband in the Hudson Valley of New York. More information at www.jocelynjanecox.com and on her Instagram @jocelynjanecoxwriter.
Sara Weiss is the author of the middle-grade biography, The Totally Awesome World of Caitlin Clark (Quarto, 2025). The book received a starred review from Booklist and praise from Kirkus Reviews. Sara has also published a series of books about the endearing qualities of dogs: A Labrador Life, A Golden Life and A Frenchie Life (Quarto, 2025). Her writing has appeared in many publications such as Literary Mama, Mutha, Lilith, Waterwheel Review and Bustle, and she writes podcast episodes for Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. Sara has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, works as a professional writing consultant, and lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband, two daughters and little dog. Learn more at saraweisswriter.com and on Instagram @saraweisswriter.
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