What I want you to know Pt 1
Alba You are incredible. Really bright, kind and loving. You are so much fun, you're nearly three and currently experimenting with humour, tone and inflection. You catch a phrase so easily and turn them quickly, uniquely. I want you to play to your strengths: confidence and communication will always be assets, but seek joy and experiences beyond your comfort zone. People are portals to other worlds, so take an interest in the lives of other by asking them about themselves, their joy, their loves. This is how we build connection. Connection should be savoured, nurtured and found through people's art and actions as much if not more than their chat. Share yourself as you feel comfortable, but be mindful that while you and your friends are young, you are all experimenting with boundaries and working out your values. I’ve made mistakes so perhaps listen when I offer advice. I would do anything to help you avoid some of my misgivings, but then you might be better at navigating life than I am. I’m nearly 40 and we are still getting it together. Though my feet are more certain, I am still trying to work out what kind of childhood I would like to make for you. I want you to have adventures but to feel safe. Learn to love nature and the planet. Look for it, love and nurture it everywhere. Though my heart sinks when I think of the Earth you will inherit. I’m hungover. I’ve just been to Sardinia with Maira on a work holiday. It’s been three nights and I’m missing you. The hangover gives me anxiety and I’m worried about leaving you and Oscar in the world. You will have each other and your cousins and hopefully enough of me in these pages.
Home – in draft
Meeting mothers at the mothers meetings,
finding each other, there online,
Night support,
Sharing war stories,
Torn and refashioned histories,
Most have dips of depression,
Deep conflicting feelings of love and loss,
Seas crossing,
Creating tidal waves,
Out from land, without oars,
No knowing if we can get back to before,
A reckoning,
Because probably not.
No sleep,
Body newly stiched,
Even after a heavenly birth,
Free from instruments and intervention,
New mothers, with full arms,
Prodded the mirror, their wasitlines,
Dusted the floor with fingertips,
Traced their shadow,
Always, only, ever,
One arm free.
The neck that used to roll is now crooked,
Ears that prickled overhearing delicious stories,
Now stay cocked for the siren cry,
Am I a shit mum if I don’t know hungry from tired,
The internet captures all our insecurities and secrets.
No one knows the difference between a newborns hungry and tired,
Especially not the new born.
I rebel
Sit in the surf,
The last hours’ tide of toys,
Books, crumbs,
Lapping,
My,
Feet.
A swell of dishes,
Bubbling at the sink.
Washing frothing from the
Laundry bag,
The linen basket,
Piles,
Heaps.
I rebel,
Chose not
another futile mission
Tidying, turning,
Fun into done,
To be undone.
I rebel,
Choose to put words
To this rouse
A scam
I am more than machine,
Beach sweep,
Care giver,
I choose a new horizon,
Flatten a crease,
New pages, new ways,
I leave myself,
To find myself.
Lost in a world,
Another story,
My own gains meaning,
My own gains.
Mine.
I find myself,
Drifting in a sea,
Alive with just made memories,
Peace.
The children sleep,
I find me.
A Memory
Not a holiday, an Adventure
Parenting in another location,
With less of our things,
More unknown
New danger,
And Excitement
Us, a Family of four,
Stitch our belongings to the land,
To another family of three,
Long loops and trip wires,
Pop up, fold out, every thing,
So smug to have a kitchen,
A wardrobe.
Make believe and honesty boxes,
Orange fires flicker,
Smudge into sunsets,
Which slowly fade to midnight,
Pitch black, star freckled sky
Sprinkles of fairy lights,
Camping takes you back to basics,
The tables turn,
Campsite Queen,
Has the biggest carboot,
Most willing partner,
Most well children.
Cooking with more than two pots,
A gourmet feast,
Nippers snack on nibbles,
Eat ice cream anytime,
Refuse meals in restaurants,
More snacks.
Potty training the toddlers,
Weaning the baby,
6months old, easy going,
Just boobs and regular naps,
Leftover toddler tapas, makes the odd snack
The toddlers share everything,
Toys, food,
one good mood between them.
Sickness moves between us,
An ocean of unwell,
Waves of nausea,
Crests of colds,
Crashing tonsillitis,
Foaming coughs,
Lapping,
Lagging
Reserves never quite replenished,
Phone juice, gumption,
All managed carefully,
A delicate eco-system,
Bats, cows and wild moorland horses,
Rumour of glow worms,
Back to nature,
Are the lives of animals also dictated by mothers,
Managing fragile toddler moods,
And a bag of endless snacks.
The Lover’s Journey
The Lovers Journey
If they could, they would send a post card back in time,
So that they could find,
Each other sooner,
Exchange every wasted minute, every idle hour
For more of now,
And if it were allowed
He would give her and she would give him
The beginning of their beings,
Every first time,
Every last night,
Wrapped in silk and ribbons
But they are forgetting,
That the past is the only map they had to bring them here.
‘You and I would not have fallen in love at 15’,
She teases,
He laughs and agrees
‘We were not right … not then’.
Before they knew it, they grew,
The heel of his hand,
To fill the scoop of her back,
Her face to fit his neck,
Their limbs to tangle,
And their hips to dance,
That first sideways glance, told a story
Only the other understands.
Soon they found themselves,
Sharing secrets like they hadn’t been betrayed,
Loving like they’d never been left
Laughing like they didn’t need to breathe: –
Relieved, they lay quiet, collapsed
Shattered after climbing the mountains of the past,
Grateful to have met at all,
At last,
Still and silent,
They see all their tomorrows painted on the horizon,
Lingering,
Long like honeymoon kisses,
Glistening,
Fused like sunsets and sunrises.
The future and forever,
All there in the palm of their hands.
Fingers laced, a slow embrace,
A gentle nod
And with every moment anew,
They promise to say I do, over and over again
Breast Feeding
The same song went round my head again. “Aaaaay… your really Awe-some, Nnnn, there’s No-one quite as cool as yoooou”. Its not a song from the radio, but one I’ve made up and it is not even my babies name. A, N, G, I, E (and repeat). Angie is Albas hypno-womb-mates name. The song was dreamt up one long feed, not too long ago. During the long one’s when impatience kicks in, I remind myself, soon will be the last time. Enjoy it.
Since the start, I’ve tried to make breastfeeding the most efficient activity. Imagine, feeding the baby and reading a book or an article, drinking a cuppa, listening to a podcast, watching a documentary. The things I would accomplish when breastfeeding. So many things. Ha! I set up a breastfeeding station replete with many snacks and a water bottle (I only had to think about feeding and need to drink a gallon of water), my ipad stand, phone charger – with a long lead, pen and paper.
In those first few spacey weeks I was disheartedened to learn that I would need two hands to breastfeed. One to hold baby and one to squeeze my boob. Later I would learn that this tactic is called a C-shape hold. Holding a book was impossible. Concentrating on anything while knackered and learning to feed was also nigh on impossible. As is drinking a hot cup of tea; still countless times I made a brew only to watch it go cold. It is too dangerous to drink a hot cup of tea over the baby and too risky to transfer a sleeping newborn from Mama to moses basket. So instead, I would let episodes of Brooklyn 99 and RuPauls drag race smudge past. Bleary eyed. Exhausted. But totally elated.
It was a meditation to relax into it. To just sit and watch as Alba attack my soft breast tissue with her tiny gums. Eyes closed, ravenous, smelling her way, to the well of all good. She would roll back, milk drunk and sigh. Limbs spasmodic and uncoordinated. The joy of watching her learn to grasp and clasp and funnel things into her own mouth is hard to describe. Love is nurturing. The reward is growth. Now, at over ten months, she rolls back with a thud. She stretches out for a big gulp of air and nose dives back to target or grabs a squidgy handful of boob and pulls it to her face. The look hasn’t change. Still, wide eyed and amazed, smiling and content – as I am – that we can do this together. That we are still bonded through the body.
It’s easy to make this normal. To forget that this will be a memory soon. Babies leg scrambling up my chest, foot wagging in my face, fingers searching for my mouth. Her eyes glued to mine. Breastfeeding is a somewhat passive activity. So many ideas and dreams come to me when sat in the maternal hold but it is also hard to fight the call of other soft pleasures like sleep, phone time and the respite from constantly watching, entertaining, feeding, changing and cleaning up after the baby.
My body without thought or instruction, produces nutritious food and drink and a prescription for whatever she needs, whenever and wherever she needs it. My body’s intelligence cooperates with Albas, upping the quantities and ratios depending on her needs. Breastmilk is pain relief, comfort, a tool for tears and tiredness. Once I got the hang of it, it became the easiest thing in the world, so easy that is easy to forget that it is already the most efficient thing in the world.
F’ it! – Fathers Day with a Family of Four!
Ok, it’s a hall mark holiday, some kinda cash raid on mothers, because the kids aren’t paying are they?
But when you have grieved baby loss for eight years, that’s eight mothers and fathers days where we have to work through our hybrid status. Childless yes, but not, not parents. Rupert lived for nearly ten minutes outside of me and five and half months inside.
His breaths were a startling miracle, I expected him to not be alive. His tiny movements, were epic. I cradled him in awe as the nurse checked his breathing and confirmed he was alive, as she went to get a doctor, who came, nodded and pressed the stethoscope to his tiny maroon chest and said ‘it’s slowing down now’.
What a privilege to cradle someone through their first and last breaths! I didn’t cry then but I cannot think of those moments without a flutter of tears swelling at my eyelashes.
So Father’s Day and Mother’s Day hit different now our family is complete. Bullshit holidays to many and that’s fine, but to me, it’s an opportunity to be grateful for our chaos, our joy and each other. We celebrated with a cycle and a roast dinner. Dicky really is a brilliant Dad. I’m so glad we stayed together and kept trying. It could have easily fallen apart.
Back Again
Months must have passed.
I have moved cities, had another baby, and acquired some well-paid work which gives me pride to mention (maybe I’m not an aching failure) but is as dull as a Manchester morning to talk about. Organisational leadership theory anyone? Thought not.
Turns out, being a new-mum-work-bore isn’t enough, and to get real, it never was going to be. Now I am drowning in responsibilities, I am back, fighting to reach the surface. Art it seems is necessary. Well paid work and a beautiful family are the ordinary person’s pursuits, but it was such a bitch to attain either that I am here, in awe of anyone who has achieved either but nearing 40 and newly committed to make writing if not a daily then a weekly practice. Let’s see.
I have recently devoured a new book, ‘Raven Smiths’ Men’ and it is simply brilliant. Dripping in metaphor so accurate that it’s truth tapers like expensive clothes – I imagine. It has been a good while since I have worn truly expensive (not Vinted) clothes – despite spending my late teens exclusively shopping in Flannels and House of Fraser.
So much is familiar in Raven’s work that nostalgia pinches at my post-natal body reminding me of slimmer times, (perhaps it is that period I think of as our hay day) – a time of club kid realness, think Nintendo Gameboy necklaces, rubber gloves and capes – when mine and Raven’s lives just about overlapped, not that I would be memorable to him and in fairness, until he became a meme King, I always thought of him as that dickhead who was obsessed with self-nudes, though now I imagine this opinion was formed after a one time event. The other thing that pinches me, is that it is another contemporary (I’m throwing a lasso here) who has done startlingly well. Kae Tempest, Musa Okwonga, Salena Godden, Inua Ellams and so many more who I have shared pages and stages with, are all celebrated, accomplished, high achieving, writers; Hell, most of them are even successful poets! I didn’t even know that was possible unless you died at least 50 years ago, and I had that thought two decades passed.
When I was a gigging poet I was at least, motivated to write, there was always an audience needing something new, but given my low hopes for a career in the field, I tried to move away from spoken word and Mighty Boosh bands (we were terrible and I had a booze and drugs problem – which is probably the reason we were terrible) into writing and the short story. But as it is such a solitary and lonely pursuit, the nag of building debt, the pull of aimless ambition and the burden of fatiguing indecision and low self-belief, pushed me towards a career ladder that was more like that Escher drawing with the steps that fold in on themselves. For those that don’t know the reference, think Harry Potter staircases behaving unhelpfully. If only I had done the thing, been brave, dared to marry and commit to my art; where would I be now? Was I ever good enough?
My genius friend Will Conway has adopted the adage, ‘Wear them down by sticking around’ and he is not only prolific but he is startlingly brilliant (and blessed enough, I think on his better days, that he knows it), it is only a matter of time before he is picked up by some phenomenal cult youth movement that fucking gets it and is despairingly flung into the mainstream – I can’t wait! Will has even closer proximity to Raven, but like me, hasn’t been put under the right nose at the right time. Maybe we just didn’t do enough cocaine? The thing that Will cottoned on to which, despite being my longest and most loyal opposite-sex best friend, that I couldn’t quite hold in my butterfly brain, is that we not only create and communicate for the sake of joy and the goddam glory but also, to stave off the nasties that curdle the night and canker our conversations and, if we are unlucky, our relationships – an abyss of dark thoughts. We pour our emotions somewhere and refashion them in search of light and shade, we let them brim through our fingers, allow the imagination to re-wild, to process them (true feeling the premise of all art) so that we can breathe and enjoy it.
What is most annoying about Raven’s book is that, it serves as a guide to his ridiculously cool life and I never knew how to do it. Raven and I were not really writing contemporaries; we had friends in common – in fact we still do – and many of them are also amazingly successful. I have always guessed at what it was that they had that I didn’t and now Smith has enlightened me, at least what it was for him. Nuanced as it is, I will unfairly claim this as him having a Mum who paid his rent through university. There’s much more too it but this is what sticks in the craw.
Some people seem to have read The Guardians ‘guide to life’.
It is important, to be a credible and successful middle class leftie, you have to have a career that pays you enough to access culture, countryside and other countries, or a job that brings you that as part and parcel. But you also have to have enough wild escapades in youth to be able to dismiss the cliche of it all.
I on the other hand have had the challenges of trying to change class (decidedly working class, factory background) without a fucking clue, whilst climbing over and crumbling beneath mountains of trauma. It isn’t just growing up skint, it’s family relationships breaking down at pivotal points, it’s bad company, drugs, violence and rape. It’s vulnerability which makes any sticky hand feel like safety and it is naivety and lack of options, that keeps you unsure of your own power. So you keep looking for a quicker ride to the top but you can’t spot a true angel and you don’t know that you have wings.
Fearless creativity
So I am here, writing about motherhood and miscarriage and finding an unconventional way in the world. I’m writing about the need to write and hoping to learn about writing and blogging. I am doing this publicly to be accountable (though I have failed many times before, I don’t see why that should stop me starting again.)
It would be great to meet other writers and mothers and feminists who are just trying to find a way. Imagine if we built a web of support and solidarity? Imagine if one person reads this and it inspires them or comforts them? That was what used to keep me going back to the stage.
Woke on No sleep 