M(other) Stories

9.35am.

Sitting in the entrance of the sure start centre, waiting for the Friendship Group to begin.

To get Naoise to eat his breakfast this morning, I needed to sit him on my knee and feed him like a baby. I posted shredded wheat pillows into his mouth. Mother Bird. I will literally do anything to get him to eat before school. I manage to slip about five pieces of cereal  into him. He refused the rest. He asks for pancakes. I toast one. He refuses the first as its covered in butter. I eat it. I have ben developing bad habits around food again. I have been a bin to sweet stuff and eating over sized portions and drinking too much alcohol.

He eats the second pancake. Puts on his car without asking but teases me with to brush or not brush his teeth.

I am bored of writing this.

 

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Sat on the sofa watching the mercury awards with Syd. The youngest musician nominated was 19, she began writing her first album at 14. The music business is full of youth, I cannot remember the last time that I managed to spend some tine with Syd. Its good to think I have.

The leaves are suited with frost and there is ice in the puddles.

---

Cold. Helped older friend to hoover his bedroom, and fetch his shopping Concerned about older friend especially now that the cold weather has dug in.

Thinking that this writing is like a shopping list. Thinking of Ceal Foyer Monochrome Till Receipt White, 1999.

Eating sweets. BAD. Change. I can. I want. I do. Except.

Confidence and resilience

Thinking I should just get a care job. Any job will do. What am I waiting for. The perfect job does not exist.

I need to make money.

Or sell what I can. Maybe that is enough for now. What can I sell next? Cot sold. Cot that hardly got used. Naoise spent most of his baby years in bed with me. Still does. Co-sleeping easier for nighttime breastfeeds.

Need to advertise open studios. Send out invites.

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Research

‘Conscious cruelty’: Ken Loach’s shock at benefit sanctions and food banks, Diane Taylor, The Guardian, 23rd November 2015

Middle class people dominate arts, survey finds, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, The Guardian, 23rd November 2015

19.16pm (sat on the sofa with Naoise asleep)

Back from YSP and a visit to see Bill Viola. Eaten too many liquorice allsorts. Arrived late in the afternoon but managed an hour in the galleries then a moon lit walk. The park at night is a tranquil place when emptied of people.  Me and Naoise sat on a bench drinking hot chocolate talking of the magical dark. Naoise was afraid of the dark, he was going to run ahead and find P and S but decided to hold my hand instead he lost me.

Don’t be afraid of the dark, the dark is beautiful, the dark is quiet, the dark is blue velvet and owls screeching. The dark is a moon and stars and clearness. Eyes grow used to the dark. Dark is an adventure. 

All is just ok. Its Sunday. Potatoes and Pies in the oven. Slumbering children. A quiet road.

Yawning. Don’t have the energy or imagination or thought for this screen work.

Midnight-ish

Today has been one of those days that I would rather forget. It began at 4am in the morning. Snow on the skylight woke me. The first snow. I went downstairs and looked out of the window. Everyone asleep. Thin snow on car roofs. Glad I had seen it, as I thought that this smattering would be gone by dawn.

I turned on the heating.

A day of tantrums and frustrations and anger. Each other blaming each other. For being wrong. Tears and chocolate and stubbornness and  wishful thinking. Confiscation of iPads and guitars and amps and not getting to the swimming pool.

Going to the engagement party and the crazy man in the bungalow complaining about my parking, Sober, waiting for the pick up man to sort out the car which I thought had had its lock tampered with. In fact the lock was simply frozen.

Snow falling a cold room and sky Children playing darts and pool. Cheese and wine and adults talking and wanting to go home but waiting for recovery.

 

11.50am ( at the table in the front room)

P has gone back to work, his only real concern was how to keep his support stocking from falling down. He took a crutch and imagined that he would be hitching it up as he walked along the road. I suggested a suspender belt might help and giggled insensitively.

Syd posted a photograph of his head and bare shoulders on Facebook. P was concerned that perhaps he shouldn’t be representing himself like this, but I thought it was rather lovely that he was celebrating his burgeoning sensuality and celebrating his body. I understood P’s  perspective; we do live in a body obsessed society. We do objectify the male form. The whole person is just as important as the body. Still, I am pleased that he is confident about his physicality. I was a timid teenager, that felt very ashamed about my body, I am glad that he hasn’t picked up on my neurosis. I am glad that I did’nt grow up having to negotiate the complexities of social media. Is it robbing our children of their childhoods?

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The washing machine is drying some tea towels, its sound is gentle and reassuring. Outside it has stopped hail stoning and there is some blue in the sky. It will change again soon though, the grey and wet will return.

 

I went for a walk. A daydream plodding walk. I needed a day off from thinking and the studio and being anxious. The walk was interrupted by a call about some training and a volunteering opportunity with the sure start centre. I am not sure though; its in Halifax. I am not sure about anything. least still what I am actually being offered. I will wait for the email. If I have to volunteer to get a job, I will volunteer. I have severe reservations though. I am not convinced it will lead to a job, but maybe it will get me out, get me thinking of something other. Stop me from feeling STUCK, keep me occupied, make me more confident. Broaden my horizons.

---

 Time passed and the rain went on falling. There had never been an autumn when it rained so much. The valleys along the coast sank under the weight of all this water that was streaming down the hillsides and the ground rotted away instead of just withering. Suddenly summer seemed so far away that it might just as well have never been and the distances between the houses seems greater and everyone crept inside.

Moominvalley in November, Page 15, Tove Jansson

I completed reading Naoise Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the new Moomin books have arrived so we are back in the fantasy world of Finland. I am much happier in the cozy Moomin Valley with all the lovely characters that live there. I would rather search out Moominmama than sift through the dark of Dahl.

I am like the Fillyjonk;  I have shelves of pretty china and plates, surplus to requirements.  I am anxious and nervous and clumsy. I enjoyed reading the story about the Fillyjonk, balancing on her roof and struggling to clean her windows.

---

I speak to my mum on the phone, she sounds very fed up, they are waiting for the roof on their house to be replaced. The bad weather has stalled the building work and they are dealing with large leaks and emptying bucket upon bucket of water.

 

Naoise friends are coming to play this evening. I need to get on, finish up with this; its been good to take life slow, to enjoy the space of the house to myself.

This project is almost done, and I think I am glad as it is taking its toll and I don’t always want to be honest and share and  I think I am over analysing and it is taking away from the creativity rather than aiding it. Creativity does not need to be explained, its not a formula. Some things cannot be rationed out. Some times its best not to explore emotions. Some times its best not to try and fix things, to change the narrative. Some times its best just to get on with and let the day go by and the next become another.

---

Research

18 Habits of Highly Creative People, Caroline Gregorie, 11/15/2015, The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/highly-creative-people_56313441e4b063179910bd4e

6.48am (sat on the sofa)

I cleaned the grim from the screen and out of the crevices of my keyboard.

I tidied a kitchen cupboard so that I could put away a stash of plastic bottles and tupperware.

I put the washing machine on.

I tidied Syd’s school bag, signed his journal. Noted the one formal warning to discuss at breakfast time.

I cleared up the dishes.

I lay clothes to dry on the radiator.

I thought about how pointless the meeting with the business advisor would be.

I tried not to feel angry.

I woke up and five and felt the need to get up and got all of these things done. P’s dad and sister are coming today and I don’t want to spend the day at home cleaning and tidying for their arrival. I have done enough. I have cleaned the bathroom, the kitchen and the front room, its not perfect but its not an embarrassing shambles. Its good enough.

I am concerned about waking up so early each day. I am concerned that I feel so tired that I fall asleep clutching Naoise. I am all black. I am all angry and bitter and eaten up inside. I am fed up with disappointments. I am trying to walk it off, draw it off. Calm myself down. Virginia Woolf walked for at least two hours each day, sometimes in the pitch black of night.

I have almost completed the commission for my friend. Tiny bodies etched in black ink. Breasts shooting out milk. Full, fertile. The images are over the top, overt. The lines are drawn on household paint colour paper. Each body becomes a hieroglyphic. The drawing begins as words from left to right. A narrative in lines emerges. A rhythm. White ink spilt on the paper as bubbles suggest eggs and milk spills. The white interferes with the fluidity of the line. All on blue. Blue sea, sky, veins, eyes. Blue the water carrying the baby inside the mothers womb.

I felt the warmth of the soles of his feet touching the inside of my legs. Occasionally his toe nails scratch. We turn over and hug each other. Arm over, Arm over. 

Almost completed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Last night I read the chapter about the squirrels that turn rogue and attack Veruca Salts and push her, her mum and dad down the garbage shoot. Dahl is at his best when he is describing a disturbance.

I feel impatient. The sky is turning from black to the blue of day. Its seven. I need to end this and ensure that our Syd is getting up, and getting ready for school. Today will be arduous. I am not very good at entertaining, it stresses me out, but I am pleased that P’s family are coming to see him. He did almost die. If it was my child, I think I would want to check in on them. Feel their pulse and presence.

The hail stones battered the sky light and the thunder and lightening roared. The weather was violent and unpredictable. The hail stones crashed so loudly onto the glass it sounded as if they might break through. Apparently snow is forecast for this weekend.

---

I promised that I would try and be honest about my experiences, so I am back staring at the screen. I have just about managed to stop crying and do something proactive. I am writing sadness out of my system. 

---

The school run became a drive. Naoise couldn’t face the cold and the bitter rain. I eventually managed to get him to wear a coat after suggesting three possibilities;  the right size but damp option, the dry but  too small option and the waterproof but not warm enough option. He put on the dry but too small option but then changed into the wet option.

The rain is perpetual.

Naoise fussiness is driving me insane. He does not listen to mothers advice. I have to just let him learn the hard way.

I am in the studio. I went to the business meeting. The man in a suit was friendly, and he was  kind when I cried and felt embarrassed and told him I was desperate. He told me that he had been unemployed himself many times, that he has helped ex convicts, asylum seekers, refugees, and me, a white over educated, moaning mother of two.

I see now how silly I must of sounded as I dismissed again his suggestions of voluntary work.

He tells me he is not interested in my artwork. This is hard. I had wanted to discuss some of my ideas and what I could do. He cuts me off. He doesn’t even like artwork. He hates it in fact. He can’t even draw himself.

This isn’t very helpful but I can see that the only thing he can do is listen and offer me the advice that he can give. His advice feels dull and lifeless.  He tells me about local business networks and breakfasts. I fantasise that the breakfasts might include free food. He gives me the details of someone who knows about how to set up social enterprises.

50 % of small businesses fail in the first year. I wonder what I am even doing here in this glass room box in the library. I tell him that I don’t even know what I am doing here. I have no money to invest in a business or create a new business. I am skint.

I tell him about how I have struggled to even do any business locally. That there is very little work for artists. That my sector has been cut drastically. That I feel really angry and that my skills are completely under-utilised. That I feel undervalued.

I  tell him that I am still am annoyed about the person that complained about me running a life drawing class from my own studio. They suggested that I couldn’t run a life drawing class when someone else was doing so as well. How dare they tell me what I can and cannot do.How dare they try and stop me from making a living. I am still hurt by this. Their  words hurt me. I am still angry. I need to let go of anger.

I did run the class and the other class did not falter. So there worries and words were unfounded. There words only caused harm. It hurt me more than them. I am a fragile, sensitive, vulnerable person. I take words to heart. I let feelings get the better of me. I try not too. I try to reason out the world.

YOU ANALYSE THINGS TOO MUCH> ANALYSIS STOPS CREATIVITY ADN PROGRESS.

The market here is flooded with creativity and services and alternative therapies and hairdressers and cafes.  Perhaps there is no space for me and my artwork here. Perhaps I just don’t fit. Its hard. All things start small, all ideas need nurturing. Locality is important.

Am I located in the wrong place? Do I need to be in a city? Do I need to be  South where there are more jobs and opportunities and sunshine?

---

I ring P. I am crying. I can tell he finds me frustrating. His voice is impatient. He has heard it all before. He is bored of me and my unemployment story. I am completely stuck. He thinks I should re-do my GCSE Maths online. I try to tell him that I can’t understand maths that I need a teacher to help me, that I can’t do it on my own, I need some guidance. He tells me that I need to decide on something and go for it. Teaching, PhD, Mental Health & Parenting work. Ideally I would do them all. Perhaps I can.  I stop talking to P its not helping. Instead I am here talking to this screen.

The screen does not interrupt, its a good listener.

I write emails to organise potential voluntary work and to ask of advice. I write to a friend and ask if there are any teaching opportunities at her university. I miss teaching. I miss the world of academia. Of learning and knowledge.

I need to get some advice about applying for some funding from the arts council. Ideally I want to create a participatory arts project around the maternal and mental health. Or do a residency at a hospital or a sure start centre, or both. I fill in an online form.

I wait and I wait. It rains and it rains.

---

The hail batters the glass of the skylight and I am stuck and stuck and stuck inside.

I enquire about the workshop about Loss and Change at Healthy minds. Perhaps that will help.

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Research

Cathartic Power of Art: Motherhood as a rite of passage, Ana Alvarez-Errecaldeon Nov 9, 2015, Elephant

Selfish Mother

7.01 am ( sat slumped on the sofa)

I am confused. Ever feel overwhelmed by what work there is to do? I have made a massive project M(other) Stories, it is full to the brim of words  and thoughts and ideas and images. A proliferation of images. So how do I tackle that, how do I develop it, what do I do with this container?  Does it become a kilner jar on a kitchen shelf, gathering dust and filled with a grain or a cereal that hardly gets used. We have loads of lentils in jars that sit worthy but uneaten.

Syd is just out the shower, I heard his heavy steps come down the stairs then back up. I have polished his shoes and his brothers. There was love in my shine. Its still dark outside, wet and miserable. This time of year is about hibernating and escaping into the imagination as the reality of the damp is depressing.

I am going to spend a day reading from my M(other) Stories. Come and listen if you want it will be on Sunday 6th December 11am-4pm, The Linden Art Studio, Linden Mill, Hebden Bridge. I thought that would be a start in thinking about what to do next. I would get the opinion of others. I need some feedback. I need some listeners and responders. Art needs an audience.

I still haven’t read To the lighthouse, or done something with that pram. I keep thinking of the scene from the Suffragettes movie of the pram full of stones that were used to smash windows on Oxford Street in London. I keep thinking of the scene in Battleship Potemkin where the pram with the baby in it is launched down the steep steps. I keep thinking of pushing an empty pram full of potatoes up the buttress road towards Sylvia and her grave in Heptonstall.

I keep making magical pilgrimages with my pram.

With my pram we walk through the streets of Berlin, we walk from east to west, past the remnants of the wall. With my pram I walk to Jerusalem and the wailing wall and my baby and me push a rolled up piece of paper containing our prayers and wishes in a crevice . With my pram I walk the Great Wall of China and contemplate how small me and my baby are and how big nature is. Yet how amazing mankind is and that the wall can be seen from space.

With my pram I get onto a boat and we travel into the congo and the Heart of Darkness. With my pram I walk the entire boggy length of the Pennine Way calling into pubs on the way and drinking ale. With my pram I walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and I see all the sites of New York and push around the helter skelter of the Guggenheim museum. With my pram I walk the streets of Kings Cross in London and trace the steps that I made with Syd when I lived there. My pram takes me to all the places that I have been and want to go.

Me, my pram and my imaginary new born baby.

The baby is my daughter. My imaginary daughter. Who is my imaginary daughter? I will concur her up. She is strong. She can climb trees and sew and kick a ball and draw neat lines with coloured felt tips. She can cuddle you close and she can  get very frustrated and bad tempered and shout at you. She pushes her feet inside my shoes. She is fascinated with my lipstick and green eye shadow. She wheres a dress and crazy coloured patterned tights and twirls around and around like a dervish. She pushes small blue flowers into dirty brown mud pies. She breaks off branches from a willow tree and carves a bow and arrow with a pen knife. She makes a fire and toasts fallen walnuts on it. She races newts across the surface of a water trough. She swims through deep water. She tumbles a somersault in the air and balances on a beam. She swings from a tyre on a branch.

Its time I made sure that Syd was coming down stairs in his uniform, he has been an age upstairs and sandwiches need to be made and breakfast eaten.

Today will be another studio day, I have decided to escape into my imagination this week and pretend that I don’t need to panic and look for a job and that the world is all just fine………..

6.45am at the table in the front room ( I have been awake since 5.30am)

You don’t go to church or a psychotherapist – you go for a walk and feel better.

Bjork

I woke up completely dressed, the cotton fishnet tights making for a sweaty nights sleep. I am totally exhausted from care work and tidying work and battling against depression work.

I drew and sorted and walked my way out of black. I walked the path in the woods near to Ted Hughes home. You could see that there had been a deluge of rain, the ground was sodden and covered in piles of leaves and stones that had been washed downhill by temporary rivers.

There are still a few leaves clinging in the trees catching the sunshine. I very almost stood on a frog that crossed my path. I didn’t kiss it. I didn’t become a princess and it kept jumping overtime I pressed focus on my camera.

I saw a black rabbit, and a pheasant jumped up with a screech. Earlier this morning I heard the owl calling behind the house.

Its not always possible to do all the things that keep me sane. Walking, breathing, drawing, holding Naoise hand. Its not always possible to be sane in this violent world. Do we hide behind a rock or do we engage with life ? Do we live in fantasy or face reality? Do we hide or do we seek? (lullaby, rocking child to sleep, breastfeeding)

I read Judith Butlers article about mourning becoming law in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris, the  the restriction of liberty, the upsurge of  fascism, misunderstandings. She states that these are;

Horrific, sad, and foreboding times, but hopefully we can still think and speak and act in the midst of it.

Slowly we can make sense of things. Slow is good. Slowness and healing take time.

I have been up since the crack of dawn, yet I still can’t articulate my thoughts. I wanted to write something about rain, crying, mourning, and resilience, but for now I have to wake the house and dress children and ensure that they have all they need to go to school. Small actions of love and care make the world turn around.

Walking to fetch water. Walking to give birth. Walking to calm a baby in a pram. Walking to stay sane. Walking to find inspiration. Walking to buy food from the shops. Walking to drop my son off at school.

Research

Special delivery: proud new mothers in the world’s poorest country, Tom Seymour, Monday 16th November, The Guardian

“Mourning becomes the law”—Judith Butler from Paris, Sarah Shin, Monday 16th November, Verso Books

 Bjork on Iceland: ‘We don’t go to church, we go for a walk‘, Laura Barton, Tuesday 17th November, The Guardian

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.

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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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