Month: November 2015

7.16am ( sat at the table up since 5.45am)

I am really fed up. I have bitten all my nails off, I am afraid to stand on the scales in the bathroom because I keep eating and eating and eating. I am depressed. I am depressed with the continuous rain. I am depressed with uncertainty and unemployment. I am depressed with being depressed. I need to run or walk or draw these feelings out. I need to turn disappointment into determination, creativity and positivity. I am all out of ideas of how to turn my life around.

I had hoped that at the end of this project there would be a small silver lining, but not yet, not yet. I keep questioning where it is I am going wrong, what have I done, what am I not doing, what is it that I need to do to change things. Volunteer, retrain, study more……except that this is the situation and that no matter what I do I can’t change it? Apparently life brings choices. That there is always a route out, things that we can do. I am privileged. I am educated. I have experience. Do I except that my role of mother and an artist is enough? Except dependence? Except that I am not economically viable?

Red sky in the morning shepherds warning. Lines of red and blue skip across the roof line and the hill brow. It actually isn’t raining. I doubt the dry will last for long, more rain is forecast.

The local park has become a boating lake. The rivers are full to the brim. The fish must be tumbling around like the laundry in my machine. Apparently you cannot get to Hebden Bridge as the Calis Bridge broke an flooded the road. There are sandbanks and flood gates attached to the houses in the vulnerable areas. I have heard of flooded cellars in business properties but as yet no homes that I know of have been affected.

I got up early. Tidied the bathroom, washed up the plates and pans and mugs and utensils from the night before. I put on a load of washing. I got Naoise dressed in his sleep. I loved watching his legs and feet stretch as I removed his pyjama bottoms to put on his grey school trousers.

I ordered two second hand Moomin books;  Moominland in November and Comet over Moominland. Whilst I await the arrival of these books I decided to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Naoise. I have a lovely copy with coloured images in it. Dahl, Morpurgo, Pullman and Jansson are my favourite childrens authors. I love this age. I love reading to my children. It is by and far one of my favourite parenting activities.

I asked friends on Facebook to send me words to describe rain. There is so much rain in the valley I felt I needed a downpour of language to describe it.

All the words and phrases to describe rain

Heavy drops snaking down the glass,

Smattering, misling, translucent riverlets,

Shimmering droplets pausing on soaked surfaces,

Lashing, Teeming,

Pelting, Belting

7.50am ( sitting under blankets on the sofa)

There are sheets of rain. Heavy rain. Rain that literally drenches. Rain the soaks the valley. Rain that makes everything sodden and muddy and grey and damp.

The washing machine spins the dirty sheets from Naoise bed and beeps at me that it has completed its cycle. Beep, beep, beep.

I attend to the machine. Pull out wet things, put back in the dinosaur motif duvet and the white sheet, select tumble dry cottons, close the door.

Everything is dripping. Damp seeps into the house. Beside the bed where me and Naoise sleep there  is a large patch of black mold. I wipe it clean, but the black patch persists. I know it can’t be good for our lungs but what can I do. The whole of the valley is damp with moisture. The damp seeps into the stone. The damp lingers. When the cold comes the combination of damp and freezing will hurt my bones.

I tidied Naoise bedroom. I picked up plastic piece after plastic piece, ordered and sorted. Penguins from pick up a penguin, monkeys in green, red, orange, blue from the balancing tree game, lego star wars figure, lego weapon, lego brick, a pen, some staples, top trump cards, a book, plastic bands. An amazing jumble of plastic fantastic. I found the floor. The floor covered in dust balls tumbling. I brushed the floor, I wiped the floor. Changed the sheets on the bed.

It is very dull sorting, ordering and cleaning, but the disgusting mess has to be tamed. It is just depressing to leave in squalor.

P’s dad and sister are visiting on Thursday, so by then the whole house needs to be fit for a king to visit. I have my work cut out for me.

Naoise sleeps. P sleeps. Syd is at his dads, he sent me a message, the busking went well, despite the miserable weather he managed to play and make some money. He loves an audience and gratification.

The newspapers and Facebook feeds are full of commentary about the terrorist attacks in France. There are clever thoughtful comments. The best ask for us to pray for humanity. To remember all lives lost in acts of terror where ever in the world those people maybe. What is reported and what is not? What stories are told, what remains untold?

The cars passing on the road whoosh up the wet water as they pass the front of our house.

The washing machine chugs.

I am lost for anything much to say.

Re-think posting my research here, I forget that this document is as much a resource and record for me as well as being for others. When you feel hurt, you don’t want to share you want to hide and hold it all in.

Research 

The seven ages of an artist, Laura Cumming, Sunday 15th November, The Guardian

Breast Feeding, Parenting, Mental Health:

Two in five new parents experience mental health issues, poll finds, Haroon Siddique, Tuesday 10th November 2015, The Guardian

Antenatal depression affects men too, Tim Lott, Friday 16th October 2015, The Guardian

I’m not a ‘Nipple Nazi’, I’m a breastfeeding counsellor, Kim Lock, Friday 27th March, 2015, The Guardian

My friend breastfed my baby, Elisa Albert, Saturday 14th March, 2015, The Guardian

Sanchita Islam on mothers and mental health: ‘Women suffer visions in silence’, Mary O’Hara, Tuesday 16th June, 2015, The Guardian

Mothers who breastfeed are 50% less likely to suffer postnatal depression, Charlie Cooper, Wednesday 20th August 2014, The Independent

Teaching Nigel Farage the fine art of breastfeeding, Jonathan Jones, Monday 8th December 2014, The Guardian

10.14 am (at the table in the front room daydreaming out the window)

It is strangely quiet for a Saturday morning, the washing machine is churning its way through yet another pile of washing. Always reliable. Always comforting to hear the cycle. I slipped Naoise snuffly pillow into the wash. He is at the Incredible Edible Young Farmers group, my dear friend took him to squelch in the muck and fun. The sunnily pillow was smelling rancid and the corner that he sticks up his nose had turned to black, it posed a serious health threat to Naoise beautiful fait skin and my nose!

I am horrified by the news. I cry. The news of the Paris terror attacks. What has become of us? All this hate all this war all the blood spilled and lives lost. What for?

We need to care for each OTHER we all need mother love to succeed. We all need understanding and compassion and connection. We all need emotional connection. We don’t need violence and war. We need peace. All the innocent lives lost. All the children born of woman and womankind. Only kindness can prevail. It is so easy to want to react with anger.

I am lost for anything much to say. I slept beyond five which is great, I feel much more relaxed. Syd has gone to his dads for the weekend, and will be busking at the Christmas Markets. I asked that he get his dad to take a photograph for me.

I cleaned and polished his school shoes, they were sodden and covered in mud and grime from walking wet pavements. I like to show Syd love through small acts of maintenance.

I drew pregnant bodies squirting milk into bodies made of towering breast totems. I made drawings that suggested actions and growth and renewal. I actually drew. Leaving the computer at home was a good thing. I got physical work done. I made marks. I rehearsed marks. I decided that the ink and pen drawings are more powerful than the permeant pen drawings. The line is less predictable, and the ink protrudes from the surface. The line has physicality.

The washing machine is reaching its crescendo. I must record and document all my research on the representation of Breastfeeding and the work on Post Natal Depression and Mental health in parents of young children. I don’t have to share everything. I don’t have to put it all here. I can keep things back just for me.

I feel very disappointed after failing to get the  job as Breast Feeding Peer Support Coordinator I want to protect me and my knowledge. I want to curl up in a nest. Hibernate a while.

Research

‘Babies? An impossible dream’: the millennials priced out of parenthood, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, Saturday 14th November, The Guardian

 

 

 

6.05am ( at the  table in the front room)

I have been awake since far too early. I am fed up. I fell asleep after completing reading the Moomins book to Naoise. He asked for more super, I ignored him and for once this strategy worked, he fell asleep without lots of trips up and down the stairs with milk, milk, milk, bread, cereal and bananas. Naoise often claims desperate hunger late in the night.

I woke up at five. I wondered if I needed to record some of my research about mental health and breastfeeding. I have been cramming up about breast feeding its benefits and related issues for days now. Its a shame that the knowledge won’t be used. I have ideas of cause for art projects. There is always an idea up my sleeve.

I bought the Jenny Lewis book this week, not that I have had any time to look at it. Its her images of mothers in Hackney with their one day old babies.

I’ve been thinking of the lack of women that you see breastfeeding in public. Is this just down to our rainy climate and short days or is it that the perception that society does not like to see babies being fede from the breast in public. This is a misconception, in fact most surveys suggest quite the opposite, the Nigel Farage’s of the world are few and far between.

The lactating woman is a powerful image. Omnipotent. Women’s bodies are amazing. Mothers milk is literally a life giving force. This sounds crass, uncritical, unthinking. I am too tired really to write anything particularly poetic or succinct. I am exhausted from the all day interview for the temporary job.

 

I wonder if there is a PhD in all of this. I would love to do some work around mental health and parenting. What would be the focus? It needs to be more specific. Post Natal Depression and the Post Partum Body. Drawing the post partum body? Drawing the transition to motherhood. Drawing the slip into new motherhood. Drawing the sludge and the slip and the sleep deprivation. Drawing out the idealisation drawing the reality.

I spent hours and hours and days and days on my own. In the flat. Walking the streets between the Angel Islington and the Caledonian Road. Pushing a circle in the pram between park, supermarket and salvation army charity shop. Staring into space. Attending playgroups. I was so very lonely. I couldn’t afford friends. I was stuck in most of the time. Nothing just me and Syd. I supposed I was happy. I supposed that this was what mothering was. Me and baby, our own little universe. 

I mashed up courgettes and bananas and stirred porridge. I cleaned up strings of spaghetti from the kitchen floor. 

Beep, Beep, Beep.

I went to the childrens library on the corner of my street. I loved to look at all the books in foreign languages, urdu, japanese, chinese, french, german, spanish. Occasionally they sold off the bilingual books for cheap, I still have the copies. 

All the while as Syd grew, I knew that an eviction notice was eminent. It cast a shadow over every thing  This home was temporary, our future was unsure. There was chewing gum stuck to the pavements, young mothers supping milkshakes in the Dallas Burger Bar, a Bun in the Oven Bakery. There were bewildered prisoners out on release who couldn’t work out how to buy travel cards. There was dust and grim. Black bogies. 

Behind Kings Cross station there was a wildlife park I used to walk to. It had a visitors centre with photographs of pond dippers and pictures of flowers and descriptions of the local environment pinned to green felt covered boards.

There were terrapins lurking in the nearby  Regents Canal that would eat the ducklings in the spring time.

There was an overwhelming sadness. 

I still haven’t worked out how to deal with the financial responsibilities that come with having children. I feel locked out of society. I keep knocking at the door but it keeps slamming shut in my face. I do feel very dejected. I need to go back to the drawing board. I literally need to go back to the drawing board.

I look in, but I want to be in the centre not on the edges and the outskirts. I had wanted to utilise my knowledge, my life experiences. I can do so much. So much. I just don’t fit. Is that it? I am not normal enough? I think too much? I am not straight forward? Is it something that I have done rather something that I have not done?  This feels like a sentence. How hard does it have to be? Have I made it difficult for myself? Where am I going wrong? Am I going wrong? What do you see?

I have run away from art, but I keep running back again. There is only this. There is only being a mother and being an artist there is no other.

I want to feel like an adult not like a child. I want to walk in the adult world. I want to earn.

Do I return to listening to children reading in the school? Where does listening lead? Where does being empathetic, supportive and creative lead?

I have run away from academia, but it keeps calling to me. I want to be back there. Back in the learning space. Surrounded by books and students and people wanting me. I have been advised to shed my cloak, to kiss it goodbye. I have been told that this time is gone, but I am still holding and holding on. I should never have left. I did not leave, it left me.

To do: look at PhD’s and Funding for an Arts and Health Project, Apply for PhD and apply for funding.

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Its pissing it down with rain. Now its sunny. Then it will piss it down with rain again. Naoise has gone to school in his pyjamas for Children in Need. Its hardly pyjama weather. He wouldn’t listen to my advice to wear a vest, put his dry trainers on….He ignores good advice. I don’t fight him, whats the point, he will learn the hard way. He did think going in the car was a good plan after he realised how wet it was for scootering.

I am planning to go to the studio. I am sick of not being able to earn money. I will make the art anyway regardless of money. What am I meant to do, stew in my own failure. I will make something of the disappointment and the sadness. All these emotions will become art work.

I wonder how many other women are like myself, struggling to get back into the paid work place after working at home for years unpaid?

 

How much voluntary work, training and education do I need to acquire, to convince others of my worth. If you are reading this I am more than capable of doing a job. I am not without skill. I am not without sense. I can follow rules and regulations and procedures and policies and I know the limits and extent of my knowledge I know when to ask for help and I can work independently and as part of a team. Thats all you wanted isn’t it, or was there something else too, ahhhh yes weird that I can’t exactly fill all your criteria all your tick boxes, all your wants. I am just me and me is not enough.

Your loss, not mine.

I must stop stewing in these thoughts and eating hazel nut after hazel nut. I hear the scaffolders erecting the structure around my friends house, I marvel at the blue in the sky after all the torrential rain. There is always change. I am here living, breathing, determined, still making something creative out of a difficult situation. Always learning and acquiring more knowledge for the sake of knowledge if nothing else.

15.29pm ( at the table in the front room)

The waist band on his pyjamas must be too tight; it has left an imprint all around his body. Lines of red. He is asleep, oblivious to my observations. I know his skin and his body. His body. His cells still and will always remain within my body. His body is a map embedded into my own. His body is a landscape, etched on my retina. I notice every nick, every bruise, every cut. I watch each heal. I apply antiseptic cream, I kiss, I softly stroke and whisper words to mend.

He has a sore just above his nose, he keeps picking it and opening up the cut when he is watching television, when he is tired and stroking his snuffly pillow into his face.

My friend is collecting Naoise from school and taking him to his after school activity. I don’t know where I would be without the kindness and support of my friends. Its all very mutual. Its all very respectful. We look after each other and our children. We are a tribe.

 

Naoise told P that his girlfriend dumped him. He is fine. I am just fine mum. Its all a little game of cause, they are only little. They are still friends. I think I feel sadder than him. I think I take it all far too seriously. I remember a boy I once loved, we would play star wars on the tarmac. I remember the fun and intensity of it. I think it probably lasted one summer term. My memories of primary school are very blurred, but they are all bathed in sunlight and daisy chains and long grass and swimming the lengths of a cold pool full of chlorine.. I think his name was Alan, he had dark hair and was good at imaginative play. I believed he was Hans Solo. I was Princess Leyer. I would try and put my hair up in platts on the side of my head, so I could be her. The hair fell down before afternoon break.

Syd is walking home. As I drove through Todmorden the flood sirens were sounding, it wasn’t even raining, probably just a test. The clouds are shifting fast above the hill, its drizzling,  getting darker, perhaps a storrm. The leaves still cling. The autumn holds on.

 

I had a job interview today. I await the results. I would love to get the job, I did my best. I doubt I got it though. I doubt everything. I analyse to much. I think about what I should do next I will be sad if I dont get it, and it would be a lovely surprise if did get it.

I wait. I wait. I wait. I wish and wish and wish. I worked hard to gather together as much information as I could, to be friendly, to smile, to articulate my thoughts and ideas and experience and knowledge. Its tough. Its always tough. I smile through lipstick and tinted moisturiser and hope and a life. Life is a process, like a wave at sea, it builds momentum, things bubble to the surface. Sometimes the thoughts are clear and have true clarity and power and purpose, sometimes the things I say are unsure and confused and not at all confident. I was myself. I can only ever be me. We come in and go out. I wore blue. I thought blue would be best. Blue is calming. Blue is the world and the ocean.

Blue is the waters that sustain us. Blue is the water where our babies float and grow inside our bodies. Blue is the colour of our veins. Blue is the colour of veins in our breasts, when breasts engorge with the first milk. I remember stuffing cabbage leaves down my bra, I wonder if it worked. I tried it, it made me laugh. a

Blue is the colour of my eyes, Naoise eyes, P’s eyes, my sisters eyes, my fathers eyes. Blue is Yves Klein. Blue is Mary. Blue is eternity. Blue is sky. Blue is Miles Davis. Blue is falling, deep, down and slipping to sleep.

Blue. P is recovering, but still in pain, still mainly in bed. I remember being in bed after N was born. He bought me food on a tray and things to read. He bought reassurance and tenderness and love. I am trying my best, but its hard to care for an adult, caring for a child is easier. Its hard to balance how much care is needed. I am good at food though, I am good at routine, I am good at checking all is ok. I am good at suggesting a warm relaxing bath. I am enough. I am not a nurse.

 

There are lines of washing, there is washing having on railings, there are clothes flung out in the street, there is a washing line that hangs out of a bedroom window. There are cats sitting on wheelie bins, hissing and cursing each other.

There are people washing cars. There are people walking. There are people who smile. There are people who cannot give me directions to a cafe as english is not their first language, so I smile and they smile and I say thank you even though I have no idea where I am going. So I walk the streets and take photographs and enjoy the sunny part of the day. I like that I am lost. I decide that I have drunk enough coffee anyway. You could fuel an entire factory floor on my caffeine intake.

There is overcrowding, poverty and squalor.

There is an old school building that is boarded up.

There are cars slowing on the road.

There are net curtains pressed against condensation.

There are bags of rubbish waiting to be collected.

There are signs that rubbish will never be collected.

There is nowhere to put rubbish. No gardens, sometimes yards, sometimes not.

There are back to back houses, council houses, terrace houses, mainly victorian stone houses.

Damp, dark, stone houses providing home and shelter.

The lines that clung to Naoise waist are long gone, and the smudge of lipstick that I planted on his nose. Each day disappears fast. The year is drawing to a close. Syd is away this weekend. Syd will be with his dad again. There will be some time to breath.

I need to run again. I miss the rhythm. I need to loose the weight I have gained through applying and applying and applying myself. I am worth something. I have value. This has value. This recording, documenting. This self awareness. This project will lead somewhere.

The sand is always tossed clean by the wave, the sandcastle knocked down, the hole filled. There is always change and movement. Two lungs. Breath. Find the pace. One step in front of another. One piece of plastic picked up. One table wiped clean. A cuddly toy giraffe perched on a warm radiator drying.

---

I didn’t manage to get the job. I am so fed up of the failure narrative. I probably care too much. The research was fun. I am literally going back to the drawing board, and running. I am running up that hill with you Kate, but Kelis and her milkshake is fun too.

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6.55am ( at the table in the front room)

The sky is blue with dawn. I have been up since six. I went to bed early, exhausted. I read two chapters of the Moomins with Naoise. I wish I had a magic hat that could conjure up a cloud to float upon.

All the interview preparation is eating up my time. No time for art this week, so much hangs on me making the best attempt to get this job. I just want to be able to feel less stressed about money and make better use of my skills and knowledge,  feel like I have value outside of the home and my family. I will spend the day in the library reading articles and making sure I know my stuff.

Its hard work looking after P at home. I am catering for him in bed, lots of trays up and down the stairs. Lots of patience. Lots of listening and keeping him happy. His bandage comes off today.

I put on the new bra that I bought hastily in the supermarket; its too small, I will have to return it, not today though, no time. I failed to get a brown top and cardigan to match the charity shop skirt so had to buy a different dress and cardigan, luckily cheap in the sale.

Blue perhaps sends out more calming messages than the hot energy of red and mother earth. I need to be calm, I need to breath, I need not to panic. I need to be blue, a river, a vein, a life force running through others. A listener. A carer. An information provider. A confidence giver. An enabler.

 

I found the driving licence, and the passport and the degree certificates. I need them all.

I dreamt about living in a home with a sea view, chickens a wood burner and a garden big enough for Naoise to have a trampoline to jump on and a room where Syd could make as much noise on his guitar as he wanted.

The washing machine cycle has ended. The radiators hum and dry the wet clothes. Its just after seven, need to wake up my teenage boy. I have made his sandwiches. I need coffee, my head is a blur.

Research

‘Women are just better at this stuff’: is emotional labor feminism’s next frontier?, Rose Hackman, Sunday 8 November 2015, The Guardian

 

 

10.55am ( at the studio)

We all need a mum. We all need love. We all need patience. We all need someone to listen. We all need someone to care. We all need love that is unconditional. We all need connection. We are all connected. We all need a sympathetic ear. We all need to know we are wanted. We all need a woman’s love.

BUT WE CAN ALL BE NURTURING WE CAN ALL MOTHER.

We all need a rest. When I woke this morning, I listened to Naoise breathing deeply and steadily in his sleep. The comforting sound of our slow breathing together. He gives me such comfort. He gives me such joy. He looks so serene. He is so warm. He radiates warmth.

We all need a mum. We all need someone to listen and to talk to.

 

We all need children to work together with us. We need partners to work in partnership with us. We need friends to support us. We are not families living in isolation. We are families that make up communities,  society. We all need to hold hands. We all need to work together.

P’s star chart that he has organised from his bed is working. Naoise is playing the game; eating his breakfast, brushing his teeth, putting on his shoes and coat. He even scootered slowly this morning, he listened to my requests of slow. I could’nt run beside him, I had too many heavy bags to carry. We were late, but we got to school calm and happy. What a difference it makes to have a patient, P at home helping to organise the children.

I don’t want to go shopping for things to wear to the interview, I hate clothes shopping. Its so so boring and expensive. I hate to part with money, I don’t really  have. I tried to find a brown top and brown cardigan in the charity shops but I couldn’t. I will have to drive to Burnley.

I can’t find my driving licence and degree certificates, they want all these things. Its stressing me out. I can’t find the items in the studio, they must be at home. Oh god this is dull, sorry reader, but life is dull sometimes, its not at all fun. Breath, breath because I am sapping my energy stressing about pieces of paper, rather than reading up on Breast Feeding and Safe Guarding and Peer Support Groups.

Need to remain focussed, calm.

Proliferation of images. Information overload. Leaves. Each leaf an image. Each leaf capturing energy from the sun. Lungs. Tree Lungs. Our lungs. Breath, don’t panic.

Images that are pixels, each pixel a cell, making up the body of the image. Pixel space.

Not wet today. damp and warm.

Syd wants me to collect him after school. I quite like it when he asks me to collect him. We don’t hold hands anymore, I wait for him in the pub carpark across from the school, and we snatch conversations with each other as I drive him home. Mum taxi service.

Research

Mom for rent: $40 buys you an hour of motherly care and judgment-free advice,  Adam Gabbatt, Monday 9th November 2015, The Guardian

 

 

22.22pm ( sitting on the sofa)

I have been trying to find a bit of peace to write this today. It is now sleep time. Everyone is sleeping. Naoise wanted me to put his arm around his body and not to go away for too long. Stay Mummy Stay, Arm around, Arm Around. I reassured him that I would not be gone for long.

I read the Moomins to him, Finn Family Moomintroll, its a win, win reading scenario we both love Tove’s words and stories.

P is at home. I spent the day licking the stairs and the kitchen clean. I didnt lick the toilet but it is clean, and the front room rug that was resembling a dust rag. I cleaned it all with love. I figured it was important that a convalesing family member should have a clean house. I actually enjoyed the process. Its simple, effective and the outcome pleasing. I like order, I don’t really like mess, I just except a degree of caos so that I can make time to create.

Something has to give, and a slightly dirty house and no ironed clothes is for me the solution for happiness.

I dropped the car off at the garage. It was sounding like an angry lion. I failed to get on the first bus back home as I didnt have the correct change. It was wet, wet, wet, raining and raining and raining. Two minutes outside and I was soaked. I looked in oxfam, in the hippy clothes shops and the book shop. I bought food for the evening meal. Forty minutes past quickly. I managed the next bus that took me all the way home.

I made coffee. Then I made dinner. Then I listened to a friend. Then I prepared for an interview. Then I went to The University of Leeds to listen to a talk by Siona Wilson, entitled Jo Spence: Against the Trending. 

I left all the boys to look after each other. Syd was an absolute star. He cooked tea, then he did the washing up, then he sat on the sofa till I came in.

It was so great to be on the train heading for the city. I had to run up the road to the university, I missed the first half of the talk and tripped over a lead on my way into the lecture theatre. The talk was great, got my brain thinking about documentary photography, specifically family photography.Its just such a joy to escape the house and the care work and enter a calm, knowledge space of uninterrupted cerebral activity.

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I thought about how the children are authors of images. Syds selfies on Facebook. Naoise images found made on this phone, when my back was turned.  I thought about how I could break down the power relations between me and Naoise. Especially in light of an incident that occurred yesterday.

I was sat on the sofa, giving Naoise a cuddle, staring into space. I looked at our hands entwined and his relaxed face, him holding onto his snuffly comforter and I wanted to document this tender moment. So I took this picture, its pretty dull and does not really capture the warmth of our embrace, the touch of our skin, the weight of his body resting on mine.

It lacks. It lacks love. It lacks authority.

Naoise certainly was not impressed that I had my camera out.  He became irritated with me. I realise now that he didn’t want me to take his picture. Photography is a TAKING. A stealing. Who is subject and who is photographer? To whom does the image belong?  The watcher or the subject? The mother or the child?

Naoise demonstrated his contempt of my actions by getting his snuffly pillow comforter and hitting it at my smart phone camera and in turn my face.

He was annoyed. He was angry.

Annoyance soon became a game. He wanted me to capture him hitting the camera with his empty pillow case. The comforter had become a weapon. A weapon against my recording him. He asked me to take pictures of what he was doing. A video, a video Mummy. Make a video of what I am doing. 

I did make a video. I did make photographs. I was interested in the results. I liked that they obscured both mine and his identity. I liked that they weren’t perfectly in focus. I liked that they captured the movement of the cloth against my body. I liked the randomness of the results. I liked the lack of control over the outcome. I liked him instructing and directing me.

But should I have been asking him to stop hurting me? Should I have challenged him? Was I being neglectful? Its understandable that he was upset. I was taking without his consent.

I found this process revealing, but Naoise behaviour in response to my actions was  perturbing. He was obviously distressed. At one stage he sat on top of the smart phone. He hit the smart phone with his hands. He did not want me or him to play with it. He even looked as if he intended to break it, and when he was hitting the object, it felt as if he was hitting me too. Breaking me apart. Us apart. Occasionally the tip of the pillow case whipped my face. It was not a pleasant encounter.

I talked to him about this situation at bed time, I asked if he had been upset. He explained that he was. He does not like me taking pictures of him, even if it is for this artwork. I suggested that he take some pictures of me instead; Maybe Mummy. I want to hand over some control of this space to him. I don’t want him to be a passive collaborator. An annoyed collaborated. This project is meant to be an honest space. A creative space. A critical space.

Have I lost sight of what matters? You cannot really live when a camera is in front of your face all the time. When you are constantly thinking with the image. Where does the image stop and where does life start? What is the point of all this documenting, all this recording? Who is it for? Who is my audience?

Am I blind to what I am making? Am I stumbling?

How is the family album made now? Who is the author? Are we all photographers now? What is the difference between the slow process of Jo Spence and the fast process of the smart phone. Smart or Slow. Which is it? Is slow not more smart?

All these images. All these images that I take each day. All these images exhaust me. Are they any good? What is good? Didn’t you want to break down those ideas of the good mother? Challenge idealised images? Have you fallen into portraying the good, the sentimental? Have you produced anything new? Have you really been honest? Can you be honest with words and images?

How to edit?  Select.

You need to look closer. Think. Think about the tarmac and the skin. Think about autobiography and the relationship between text and image. Memory and Psyche.

Think about Roland Barthes and Camera Lucida, about the image of his mother. Think how photographs lie. Think about what they don’t say. Think what is missing? What is said and what is not said? Think about the medium, all the thousands of pixels floating around in this non-space. Not ever getting to paper, or object or metal, or gallery.

How do these images exist? Do they need always to be accompanied by text, or can they be free of this ramble of reflective thought?

Have I made the work of mother visible? Or am I lost between too many images and words, information overload? So many images stored as data but never existing physically. Not enough time to process those images, to sort, to shape, to print.

Think about the author. I am not the father with the camera recording our time together, I am not the mother organising the family album. I am both author and organiser. I am artist and mother.

How do the children become better collaborators? How do I break down the power structures? I let them play. I need to let them play more with this space. How do they see me? How do I break down what I have been doing? How do I let it run free?

How can it have a life of its own?

Have I been wrong to take so many pictures of my children, to publish them here? How much say do they have in this process? How do I pass these ideas on to them? When does the art work move from mine to ours?

Syd was brilliant this evening, he helped by collecting Naoise from school, by cooking dinner and doing the washing up. He has started to inform this project. He has changed the story. I no longer have to feel that the house and care work is all my work, this home is our home, this project is our project. We are all the authors of this story. Its not just mothers story its the others story too.

We can all care. We can all maintain. We can all hold our own and others emotions. We can all cook and clean and sort and order. We can all wipe away tears and provide comfort. We can all contain our own emotions and put others before ourselves. We can all clean the loo. We can all decide to be radical and  active. We don’t have to be passive. We can all use a camera.

Are we the subject or is the photograph the subject? The camera does not care. The camera just takes, and takes and takes. Does the image speak or simply exist to create the start of a conversation? Or does it change the conversation?

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Even the woman who got on the bus is a part of this story. Its always good to talk about the weather especially on a day like today. A day when the clouds just open and open and open, and rain pours down. A deluge. Rain that removes all the leaves that were just clinging on. Rain that shows the skeletons of the trees. Rain that sets off the scream of the flood sirens.

The woman with a tight french knot fixed with plenty of grips, who got on the bus who is a part of this story.  She said that this weather is not fit enough to turn a fish out in. She was right. We were all sodden, the floor of the bus was sodden with tickets and tissues and tat, the bottom of my jeans were sodden. The rain came and came and came, and rivers ran down the panes of glass in the windows of the bus as we waited to move off from the station.

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Research

Jo Spence 

The Temporal Modes of Maintenance Work, Lisa Barrister, 1/2/2013

7.31 am ( awake since 5am sat on the sofa downstairs)

My stomach is cramping and my lower back aches. I hate periods. I wish I could say that they don’t have a detrimental affect on my life, but they do. I feel swollen, heavy, sore, and tired. I am glad though that my period has started today, as I have an interview on Thursday, so it will hopefully mean that the worst of it will be over by then.

My mother used to call her periods the curse. 

I have fibroids so my periods are especially difficult, with heavy bleeding, and clots.

P is still in hospital coughing up blood. A man with dementia joined his ward yesterday, I fear he has had little sleep.

I woke up far too early, I tossed and turned before getting up to write this. Must cut Naoise toe nails he keeps scratching my legs in the night and waking me up.

I feel so stiff. I regret drinking the two cans of cider and glass of wine, its a bad combination at the best of times.

The fireworks were lovely, crashing and banging and whooping beside the tower of the church. Naoise was somewhere with his friend in the graveyard when they went off, he said he saw them. I love the burning and the sparklers. It was so so warm though, no frost, no gloves or hat necessary.

I can’t manage this writing, my head is a fuzz. Need to go back to bed and rest some more.

I found this very funny film made n 1946 by Disney to explain menstruation to teenage school girls.

https://youtu.be/_l9qhlHFXuM

 

9.44am

He stands by the window, waiting, waiting. Waiting for his father to collect him for the weekend. He waits for the sound of his dads car at the end of the road. I sit on the sofa watching him waiting. He is late, ten minutes late. He doesn’t like it when he is late. He likes a hug on the sofa before he goes. He hates the parting just as much as I do.

I pretend that his father doesnt exist. For me that is an easier way to cope. Of cause he does exist. For my son he is an abiding presence. For me there is always an absence. A hole. He takes my child. He takes him away. He always takes him away. It always feels like a theft and this sense of stollen never fades. Stollen becomes sadness. I await his return, the house turns silent when he is away.

I never hear the neighbours, only when he is gone.

Sheets of rain drift across the valley. The trees bend in the wind.

He is gone and he is gone.

I am left with my little boy.

My man is still away. The routine operation turned out not to be so stress free after all. I played it down and played it down. I lay awake all night. He couldn’t come home. They bought him back from the brink of death. Blood in his lungs. Me and Syd tried to chear him up on the phone by singing I am the resurrection and I am the light, he couldn’t really laugh back.

I couldn’t manage to see him last night. The car is making a terrible sound, so this morning me and Naoise will go and rescue him. Ward 8, they say.

I had been waiting and waiting in the studio, drawing, writing, busying myself. I couldn’t concentrate too well, I hadn’t slept the night before due to anxious thoughts going around and around. The surgeons knife and the anaesthetic. The drug of sleep.

Did they give him too much? What went wrong? There are questions that I need answering.

There is blood on his lungs. His throat is sore, but he can eat toast so he is probably just fine.

The tree branches don’t sway they make circles.

I wish I was a swallow, constantly living in the summer. This time of year is black, black, black. It makes me eat and eat and eat. Sugar. I ate fudge piece after fudge piece after fudge piece. I dare not get on the scales. I am scared about my own reality. My body expands to contain the emotions. Bad food comforts bad thoughts, insecurities, anxiousness.

Mum and dad took me and the children to the pub to eat. The cheap pub, the pub where the food is so cheap that its hard to understand how they manage to run a business from it. A free drink with each meal. I ate greasy fish and chips, helped down with a glug of wine. I enlivened the meal with tomatoe sauce, brown sauce, tartare sauce. The food was dull and fatty.

Naoise pulled and tugged at me and struggled to sit still. My dad complained when he kicked him by mistake. My dad complained about the state of the toilets. I was grateful for the meal, but I was in the wrong place. P in hospital, me trying to enjoy my parents. It didn’t really work I couldn’t really relax.

They are kind. They care. My mum is calm. My dad is thoughtful to Syd, and they share thoughts and ideas about history, world war one and all the people in our family that died in the war.

My dad talks about spinsters. About three sisters that used to make a fuss of him. Many were left behind. An aunt who lost her son and spent all her life sitting beside a framed photograph of him, missing him.

Gone.

Death is always lurking, just beneath.

Bang, bang, bang. My next door neighbours seem addicted to house renovations. What more can there be to do. The walls are thin. Every knock is heard.

The cars on the road. The train. The rain. Must stop and go and get up snoozing Naoise and rescue his dad from the white corridors.

 

13.18pm (in the studio)

It is a relief that the din of the chainsaws has stopped and the tranquility of pit pat rain is all that I hear.

Rain falls. The leaves fall, forming huge piles at the sides of the road. The piles are sodden. Swept mountains of summer gone.

P is in surgery, its nothing serious, a routine operation, still I am anxious. See I really care. I hardly slept, I wanted to make sure I saw him before he left the house.

I am waiting. Waiting for a text to collect him.

Mum and Dad are paying us a surprise visit, they have returned from their northern home for a few days. Its terrible timing, but they are coming over, I miss them. I need to see them. It will be fine, P will just be sleeping, recovering in bed, I will be glad of some company.

I have to spend 24 hours inside with him. Watching over. I am a terrible nurse. I can nurse children, but I struggle to have the patience to care for adults……..care its all care.

Each morning I take off Naoise night clothes when he is still sleeping. I slip clothes off his legs. I pull off his top. I replace night clothes with uniform, then he snoozes a little longer. I wake Syd. I stroke his hair to raise him gently.

Naoise skin, translucent, soft, and downy blonde white hair. I observe scratches, faint bruises from falling on the tarmac in the school yard. I see scabs mending.

Breathe,

I forgot to take Naoise guitar into school, so I had to go home and then back into school again. I am so absent minded. I cannot contain everything. I cannot remember all the forms to fill, the pounds for poppies, the reading book to read.

In the studio remembering how to draw. The weight of line. Drawing bodies leaking breast milk. Enjoying the flow of the ink on the surface of the paper. Repetition. Practice. Drawing breasts and nipples and pregnant bellies filled with safety pins.

The river flows full.

The ink.

A line of miniature clothes pegs red, green, yellow, blue, purple.

I walk along the pavement to the shop to buy lunch. I struggle to walk the pavement as I meet the crocodile of primary school children. I splosh in the puddles. Water stains the tan leather of my shoes.

I have an interview next Thursday. I actually got an interview for the Breast feeding Peer Support Co-ordinator job, so now I must read, read, read, prepare, prepare. I have to do a role playing activity, god how I hate role play. My friend is an actress, she says she will help me prepare. Prepare with some improvisation. I will make her the queen of breastfeeding. I question the purpose of the activity; apparently its to test my people skills , I shouldn’t worry. I shouldn’t worry says the kind woman on the other end of the phone. A parent is coming in. So at least its not make believe.

I bought a skirt in the charity shop, hopefully a lucky red skirt. It reminded me of the autumn and my mum. Its all russet, and leaves and a thin satin ribbon around the top. Mustn’t eat too much between now and Thursday, it just fits my waist. I need a brown top, brown tights and a pink, red or brown cardigan to match. If nothing else I will dress up, tame my werewolf eyebrows, slip lipstick across my lips, where my favourite red shoes.

I ordered a book. I think of breastfeeding as a political act. I ordered a book that I saw on my friends Facebook wall, (The Politics of Breastfeeding: When Breasts are Bad for Business by Gabrielle Palmer). My friend is a midwife. A clever, creative woman. She knows the best books to read.

Put your arm around me mum. Arm over. Arm over. He requests in the middle of the night. I put my arm over. I feel his small body, so warm. Little Naoise. Precious boy. In his sleep so deep, so peaceful. Arm over. 

Mummy come back, don’t get up. Mummy come back. 

Hold time. Hold it. Hang on to your sons. Hold on. Hold them close. Hug. Love. Adore.

Stroke his hair. You notice his hair, where it has been shaved. You notice how he reminds you of his dad. Your hand traces the contours of his skull, the texture of his hair. He gently stirs.

He shows you his woodwork project, a moving photograph frame of cogs. Its impressive. He comes alive as he explains it. I adore my son. I adore my elder son. Taller than me. Almost a man. A faint shadow of facial hair beginning to appear. I hear you. I hear you.

WAKE UP SOCIETY. WAKE UP SOCIETY. 

His words engraved in my mind. He has a way with words. Sometimes gentle. Sometimes angry. Sometimes expressing love. Sometimes about the joy of riding a bike. Simple song lyrics.

Hang up the socks, the pants, the t-shirts, the pairs of jeans. Hang them up on the laundry rail and the radiator. Hang them up in neat rows. Wet clothes filling the damp house with damp. The whole valley is damp. Damp rising in my heart. A valley home of moisture. River, reservoir, rain, puddle, canal. Wall. Stone. Cobble. Heather. Mud. Path. Moor. Thick bog grass. Yellow. Grey.

P had his leg shaved. When I spoke to him he had marker pen drawn on the leg that was to be operated on. Talking to him, I think of waxy Robert Gober sculptures, legs protruding from walls.

Is he waking. Is he waking.

I hear the studio buzzer, but I pretend not to hear it.

Where does time go, I would rather be around the ones that care. The ones that care. (Billie Marten) 

I remember looking at the mushroom growing in the field. Looking at all the veins underneath. The circle of the mushroom, the pinkish grey.  Thinking of it as a clock. Line upon line, marking out time. Passing. Hold. Record. Long for. Except its beating, walk with its pace.

Your skin. Your delicate skin. A red mark. A blemish. Porous. Open. Breath. Lungs. Red pulsing veins.

A dream home. Chickens, a studio. Hugging children. Sitting in a garden. The sea. The sun. Warmth. Blue.

I hang my hopes out on the line. ( Billie Marten) 

Hold my hand. Hold my body. Hold my hand. Hold my hand tight, your little hand in mine. Gentle skin. I guide you. You holding my hand. Holding my hand is the best ever. I LOVE YOU.

Teenage boy wrap your arms around me, you make your mum so happy when you wrap your arms around me. A strong hug. A hug of a boy almost a man.

Man make me a cup of tea. Man help me with the dishes. Shower our children in love and happiness. All of us sleeping; sleeping, talking, walking, singing, dreaming, making mess and playing.

Screaming. Crying. Being cheeky and naughty and sarcastic.

Plastic toy jumble everywhere, staples and wax crayons, felt tips and books and little metal cars in the bathroom to trip you over and warm mugs of milk, and half eaten pealed bananas.

Sip tea. Brew tea. Sip tea. Stay AWAKE.

 

 

 

6.07am (sat on the sofa sipping tea and writing)

Its dark, the sound of the river, birds waking, the train passing on the tracks behind the house the cars whooshing. I am still. Eyes adjusting to the electric light of the laptop.

Completed the washing up, hadn’t the energy to battle the boys with it last night. Patrick was out at a meeting, Syd was home lats, so the day was one of those days that go on forever. I began the washing up by first removing a large slug that had found its way onto the kitchen surface with a metal spatula  Slugs are so disgusting. What is the point of a slug? How do they find their way in. Spiders can make their home in my house, but slugs they are just YUKKKK.

It felt so so long as I had woken at five in the morning. Woke a little later today 5.45am. Thats better. I feel more rested, despite the fact that Naoise woke me in the night telling me he had nightmares. I put my arm around his little warm body and he fell back to sleep.

My boys give me so much joy…….then they give me more joy. I became irritated with both of them, Naoise for scootering inside our matchbox house, Syd for refusing to eat the vegetable burgers that I had cooked for him. I left the front room and went to hide in my bedroom. I felt so angry and upset and I didn’t want to take it out on the children. My peace didn’t last for long. The boys both came in my room, jumped on the bed and proceeded to kiss me on my face and hug me. Naoise kept saying the face is mine, my mummy. No, our mummy said Syd.

Syd then went upstairs to sing, or rather shout punk songs WAKE UP SOCIETY, WAKE UP SOCIETY. I felt as if he was singing it directly into my ear. I can normally tolerate his noise and creativity, but when you have been awake since five in the morning and are having a day of low mood its an affront to the senses. The neighbours must hate it too. I asked Syd to turn down his amplifier. Syd says that I shouted at him, I can’t remember, I probably did. I was so annoyed with him for being so inconsiderate of everyone in the house and the neighbours; he certainly had woken up society.

---

I talk to Naoise about my idea to make an instructional drawing about how to build a hedgehog house. His response not now mummy. 

Naoise spent the evening wanting pillow fights, and when I declined he would chuck his empty snuffly pillow case into the air. He would delight in the snuffly getting caught on the lampshade, guitars and furniture. One time he threw it up in the air and it landed perfectly flat on the side of the sofa arm. He laughed out loud; come and see mummy, come and see. 

---

I am thinking that no calls for interviews will come today. The first interview is Tuesday next week, so really you would think a letter to have come by now. One envelope arrived yesterday, a reminder letter about the friendship group at the Sure Start Centre. I like the friendship group, but I don’t just need support I need a change to happen.

I went to meet the business advisor about being self employed. I am officially self employed; I just cannot find any work. He was wearing a neat suit, he had lots of leaflets with dull, dry information to hand out. I am not sure that this is the way forward, but I make an appointment to see him. I have some fragments of ideas, but they are more art projects than money making strategies.

If I could set up a social enterprise, an organisation, maybe then it would be easier to apply for funding. I have thought this previously, but never actually got about to doing it.

I need to do. Just thinking is not enough.

If the letters don’t arrive, I will feel sad. I already feel like a wasted resource. I have so so much knowledge.

I would still love to do a doctorate. A doctorate that is funded. Write about the maternal. Write about the maternal in relation to arts practice. Have the support of a university. Access to books. Access to opportunities to teach. I miss the energy of young people, I miss intellectual enquiry, a community of like minded people. I am lost. I am lost in domesticity, locality, childrearing, unemployability, and lack of cash to resource my creative endeavours.

What about crowd funding, remember that idea.

Crowd fund your book.

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I am distracted by the sound of the birds, the cars on the road.

I need to harness my maternal energy; I listened to the talk “Who’s Yo Mama” by Lise haller Baggesen recorded at The Mothernists conference organised by Deirdre M. Donoghue of the  M/other Voices project. I loved that she referred to Kate Bush, Patti Smith. Kate Bush has influenced this project. I loved that she wrote songs about her washing machine (Mrs Bartolozzi) and her deep deep love for her little boy Bertie.  It was a very well rounded poetical presentation.

I need to think about how to make my work public.

Get the stories out there. Push that pram, distribute the words. Organise that reading day. Think about participation. How to engage with an audience. Write that Arts Council funding bid.

DO

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The boys are all asleep. I have been staring at this screen for far too long.

I am torn between whether to go along and see the Suffragettes film at the local cinema this morning or whether to go to the studio. There is always so little time. I could probably see the film on DVD, I feel that I cannot hold off on making any longer. There is so little time to make. Patrick is going in for his surgery on Friday, so I will be on nursing and caring duties from tomorrow. I will be stuck at home. I need to watch him. Feed him. Make sure he can get to the bathroom, wash himself.

Patrick is a little scared of entrusting his care to me. He keeps imagining scenes from Misery!

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