All Woman

When I'd thought about the word imagine, I'd envisaged expansion not contraction. And yet my life dreams of being smaller. I need to be a turtle inside its shell. Or a hedgehog curled into a ball.

It's about an internal down-sizing. A need to create space to engage space. To view my inner workings as a compass and to ascribe each direction the things that matter most.

I think the word is balance.

... and then I only went and spilt water all over my keyboard. The letters stopped working, became illiterate, and I couldn't upload any photos - the drive was broken as well. So how was I suppose to blog, then?

All an excuse though. I did have a solution.

There is always a solution.

Such busy beginnings to the year: a self editing course, a vintage-styled wedding (pretty girls and bearded boys), and I lost my woolly hat.

January has never been a good month. But this year was a little better, a little more fair-weather. The facts of her birth have grown dim. I am looking through frosted glass. The past is full of shadow and images that can't be touched. At her party there is a sea of Elsas and Annas, an icicle hunt, a snowball fight, bubbles and marshmallows and five-year-old fun. I no longer see the ward doors or the imposing white of the theatre - I simply see her bright smile, her proud shoulders as she sashays down the red carpet and takes her place on the birthday-girl throne.

February I met myself. February, I had to be honest. I imagined being happier with a smaller piece of cake. I imagined a simpler life, the complexities peeled away. Or so I would wish. I stripped everything back. I mean I stripped the blogging back. In its place I have a daily yoga practise, a better diet, a stream lined focus on the novel. I have taken up running again. I am journal writing again - one with a note book and pen. I will return to practice as a counsellor this year.

But it's more than that. I am changing. I am regrouping. I am emerging from the broken lines of the infant, toddler and pre-school years. I am slotting into place. Who am I? Where now? I am reacquainting me with me once more. I have never felt better about my body and as a woman as I do now. I am rediscovering the feminine beyond the role of mother and the contours prescribed by masculinity.

I am woman.

I am free.

This is what I imagine this year.

To step into authenticity. To be me.

Winter Wonderland

This time, a winter wonderland.
White and blue.
Snowflakes on the table,
caught under shoe.

The belle of the ball,
she piles her presents high.
With friends, with family,
with Cheshire Cat smile.

The magician has a talking dog,
pulls rabbit out of hat,
grey and fluff, named Pancake,
the children squeal and pat.

Chequered paper plates, and cups.
Sandwiches, sausages, crisps,
iced rings, choc fingers; a seventies spread,
no fruit or sculptured veg.

Happy birthday is sung,
one, two, three lengthy times,
the candles blown out,
cake in green serviettes, tat in party bags.

They came again, my visual friends,
But this time far away...
Just pictures, no emotions,
a jaded silent movie, daguerreotype lens.

The midwife, the induction.
Curled over bean bag, timing deep breath,
Not enough in centimetres,
No time to stretch.

The table. The bright lights.
The knife.
Get my baby out safely.
That's all I care this night.

Out. Out. Out.
Memory be gone.
For she is here now.
Just her, is all.

Happy birthday to my baby, my sweetest, bestest friend.


If you like my writing, why not pre-order my little book, Seasons of Motherhood, launch March 2014.

#Art I Heart - Underwater Cherub

Underwater Cherub

This print hangs on a wall in my bathroom. Its of my very own merbaby, Little A, when she was just seven months old.

I love the vivid blue, the light dancing in the swirling bubbles and swell of the water's surface, and the golden gauze ethereally floating around Little A's body. I love Little A's wide eyed expression and the way she looks so comfortable and at ease in the water. She almost looks otherworldly; a mythical creature that exists in storybooks and ancient tales passed down the generations. An underwater cherub caught in a heavenly net. I wonder what her eyes are looking at. A withering ship wreck perhaps? Bobbing seahorses? An unhurried turtle? Or a shoal of angelfish darting and weaving through the warm currents of a teeming reef?

The reality is that this image was taken in the tepid waters of a diving centre pool in Chiswick, West London, by a professional underwater photographer. When Little A was three months old I started taking her to baby swimming classes to the detriment of my finances. Babies are so eye wateringly expensive aren't they? Anyway, she adored splashing and frolicking in the water with the other infants. She never seemed to mind being continually submerged under water by the very amicable teacher whose warm South African lilt reassured the oblivious babies and their jittery mothers. We continued the lessons for a year and I credit them with Little A's confidence in the water now.

I leaped, my bank balance didn't, at the opportunity of having some underwater shots taken when Little A was seven months and a bit. The shoot lasted half an hour. It involved a lot of dunking under water with costumes and props by an athletic fifty something platinum blond who should have known better than having had plastic surgery. Botox does not look fetching in a swimsuit. The gossip goes that this swimming teacher, not the one who taught Little A on a weekly basis, was having a clandestine affair with the burly photographer. Judging by the furtive glances and knowing smiles between the two there was definitely something salacious going on in that diving pool. Or my over zealous imagination was bored and fancied some intrigue to entertain itself with. I wager the latter.

This picture is also a reminder of my birth trauma and depression. After Little A's arrival it took me six weeks to muster the courage to leave my flat. Something was clearly wrong. The emergency cesarean shattered my confidence which lay broken in unforgiving, misshapen shards. The swimming lessons gave me the fortitude to brave the outside world again. They gave me a beacon of normality in the daily grind of breastfeeding, expressing and nappies. I also met some really amiable women. After the lesson we would often lunch and natter together with our bairns at the local hotel. I just hope my nervousness and anxiety at the time wasn't too palpable.

So not only does this print capture a beautiful memory from Little A's babyhood, its also a healing marker of my slow return to emotional health.

I am linking up this post with Midlife Single Mum's very imaginative Art I Heart meme. The idea is that you choose one piece of art you feel drawn to and write a short story about it. Sadly this might be my last entry given the limited amount of art hanging on the walls of my flat.