M(other) Stories

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.

---

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?

---

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.

---

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.

---

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!

---

 

 

 

9.43 am (in the studio)

I have been awake since 5am. I am worried and anxious. I cannot rest. I am going around and around in circles. I hope that I get some interviews from the jobs I applied for. I need some hope, I need a door and a way through.

I know that I am not the only woman struggling. I know that plenty others must find it hard to get back into paid work after looking after children at home. Seven years spent caring for the children. I am frustrated with just being at home, especially now that Naoise is at school. I feel like I need a place to go to as well.

Here is work. This room of my own, when I can get to it, it does offer me some structure, a place to order thoughts. To reflect. To create. To imagine.

I need to make, I need to realise some of my ideas, not just type words. The words are hungry. Has the written language beaten the visual?. I want it to be a marriage not a conflict.

Make the tea towels, make the apron, make the book, make the drawings, make the performance, listen to others stories of mothering.

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Question the role of care. Question the role of gender specific tasks and roles. Value the role of parenting. Value your children. Don’t forget the joy in-between the sludge. Change. Make small changes. Help the children to be capable and independent. Teach them to love even the most lowliest of tasks. Teach them to be kind to others by mucking in. Try to change how you feel about domestic work. Try to change how you feel about mothering. Care and chores are two very different things. Stop moaning and complaining yourself, get on with it. Stop being a cinderella and get the princes to help too. 

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Day one of getting the children to help with chores around the house was a challenge. When I asked the boys to help me with the washing up, they winced and squirmed and tried to wriggle and run away. I want my boys to help, I want my boys to grow up into men that are caring and responsible around the home, that don’t see housework as women’s work.

Domestic work is boring and tedious, but if the work is shared its less of a burden. I don’t want to carry the weight of this domestic work, I don’t want to resent my children. I don’t want to forget that it is my job to encourage them to be responsible for their lives, their mess, to help clear up afterwards.

Living in a mess is depressing. There are limits to how much mess and higgle piggle caos I can ignore. Cleaning, ordering, clearing space…….if this can be done, if it can be managed then it would enable more time for love and fun and play. Time to stop and breathe and just be still a while.

Play can happen whilst helping with household chores. Its not perfect, I am no Mary Poppins, my children did squeal, they did complain. At first, Syd refused. He said that I would write about him, complain about him here. I said he could change the narrative, he could make a different story. I said that I wanted to write about how helpful and kind a boy he is. I insisted that he helped. I explained that it was our families work, not a mothers work. That we share a home together so we share the tasks together.

The dishes were washed, and dried and cleared away. Little Naoise did help, when he saw his brother helping me, he wanted to play house too, he stood on a stool and dried up pots and pans and plates and even cleaned down the work surfaces.

I have to thank my friend who is a mother of three for her help and advice and motivation regarding this. She sent me a list of age appropriate tasks that children can manage around the home. I need to print it out stick it on the kitchen door, lest I forget to insist that they help.

Syd not only helped with the dishes, he also put on a load of washing, went to do the shopping with me and this morning he packed his own lunch.

I was horrified to discover that he hadn’t touched any of the food that I had packed for his lunch the day before. It was a beautiful lunch, french baguette rolls, clementines, crisps, home made chocolate and banana cake. I felt irritated and angry. Patrick was right, I should have remained calm. I hate food waste. I should have tried to at least hide my anger.

I need to deal with the anger and frustration. Its not good. I struggled with eating food as a teenager, I don’t want him to develop any issues around food. The fact that he hadn’t eaten explained his difficult behaviour. I do worry. Anyway I am sure he is managing to eat today, as he took control of his lunch, he made it himself. This is progress.

Its hard to always think positively, I struggle with that. Do all parents struggle?

Teenagers are definitely challenging. Pushing. pushing, pushing away. I had wanted to watch a television programme with Syd, he rebuffed me.  He pushed my hand away from the controls, he wanted to watch something, I wanted to watch another thing. We couldn’t agree, we couldn’t compromise.

We were probably both over tired.He refused me. He finds me irritating. Its hard to be rejected. Have I taught him rejection? Do I need to show more love. Love. Patience. Understanding. Do I love enough. Have  I lost sight of love. Oh I am having a Virgin Mary moment. Must not be a Mary. Must not fall into stereotypes.

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On the way home from school yesterday Naoise came to a halt on his scooter. He looked at all the leaves by the side of the pavement, and he turned to me. Mummy can we make a hedgehog house ? Its sweet that he turns to me for permission to play. Of cause, I say. I am delighted that he is playing in the leaves. Making an imaginary  home for a prickly hedgehog.

I love watching him, scooping up leaves with his hand, pushing leaves along the tarmac with his feet. Gathering, forming, building out of the wet ochre of the sycamore leaves. Help me mummy, help me make the roof, he demands. I help a little, but I am also a little lost in recording the moment. I am glad though, I am glad to stand back and watch. He pokes his hand deep inside the pile to form space for the hedgehog to get in. He creates a roof, a door and a porch.

Syd and his friend are walking up the road. They stop and admire his handy work. Syd says no hedgehog will go and live there. I tell him he is cruel. Why can’t he play along. Play along with the fantasy.

Me and Naoise scoot on home, we set some distance between us and Syd, lest we are an embarrassment. Even Naoise picks up on Syds attitude. Have I misread him? I will never be a cool mum. Parents just are embarrassing. I need to try not to overcompensate.

Later when I questioned him about this incident, he said that he did want to walk down the road with me and Naoise, but in truth, I don’t think he really did. When I was his age, occasionally my mum got on the same bus as me and my sister when we were travelling home from school, and if she did, we would glow red with embarrassment and hide at the back.

This avoidance, this shame, I guess its normal.

Doors and walls and houses provide a safe space to hang out with parents. Its ok to show love where others can’t see.

Hide. Seek.

Find love and understanding.

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Lost within these words. Lost within this project. Lost trying to find some meaning, I turn to others, to their words, thoughts, ideas, art. Their work inspires me to continue and helps me to make sense of my own.

As I chopped onions, garlic, courgettes, as I opened a can of chickpeas, as I poured a jar of curry sauce in the pot, as I stirred and fried and watched the food sizzle and bubble, I watched documentary videos from The Mothernists conference. Shira Richter, and Courtney Kessel were there with me in my kitchen, keeping me company with stories about their life and art and work.

We are connected. We are not alone.

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Each morning, their is a mountain to climb. Mount everest. Mothering is a mountain to climb. Mothering is a mountain of washing. Mothering is a pile of conflict, dispute, and resistance to try to iron out. Mothering is not always gentle, and easy. There is nothing to concur or win. There is no trophy. There is only love, deep, resilient, worked for love.

I get Naoise dressed in his sleep in bed. I lift him from bed to sofa downstairs. I try to wake him, once, twice, three times. I sit him at the table, and he slowly picks off small chunks of french baguette. I become distracted and he is back on the sofa again. Sleeping, snoozing, not wanting to scoot.

When it is time for the off, he settles on my suggestion of going to school in the car.

There is the usual teeth brushing struggle. I put a small pea of toothpaste on the brush, he wipes it off again in the glass of water. I reapply the toothpaste, he wipes a little more off. There is also the battle of the sock. The sock has to be absolutely perfectly placed and positioned on his foot for him to be satisfied, else he pulls it back off again.

The battle of the waking, the battle of the sock and the battle of brushing teeth.

I want to stop battling.

The tooth fairy did remember to come last night, only a week late.

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Research

M/other Voices 

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8.10 am (at the table in the front room)

Dare I even attempt to write this, why the hell not. Naoise is dressed and had his breakfast, bags packed, scooters at the ready. All we need to do is get his teeth brushed, shoes on and we can slide down the hill to school on the scooters. Scootering side by side talking on the way.

I helped him to do his food homework. The rebellion did not work and so I have conformed. I have taken part in this ludicrous activity. Naoise struggled to write, he enjoyed drawing a cocoa tree and a banana tree but letters and words and sentences were formed so so so so slowly. He nearly gave up and I had to use the powers of persuasion and bribery to get him to complete the task. Its too much, a six year old does not need homework. Play should be the only homework that he has. I bribed him with the promise of some time on the computer.

We did have a very creative day yesterday. Naoise drew onto plain canvas bags with permanent markers. He drew a snowman melting in a hot sun and a squirrel balanced on a post eating nuts. We walked out in the incredibly hot and beautiful November sunshine. We walked my friends little puppy.  The puppy pulled and tugged and sniffed and got excited.

This is post 287 of this year long project. The laundry is tumbling in the dryer, the humming sound is a comfort.

Where to begin and where to end? Theoretically I should end on the 16th December, that is if I am to properly follow the rules. Alternatively I could go on until the middle of January by which time as long as I don’t fail to miss a day of writing I would make the magical 365 posts. I am not sure which is the best way…..I will let the project decide for  itself.

Mum, mum, can I watch something. Please mum. Mum. MUM. Can you answer me MUM

I don’t answer I am not getting out the computer so that he can watch TV. He can watch the mist rising. He can listen to the cars woosh past on the main road. He can dream. He can be bored. He has stopped hassling me, so ignoring really does work.

Syd was a complete grump this morning, rude and nasty. He keeps demanding a new phone. He is lost without a phone. He asks to borrow mine, I decline his request. He will be ok. He will survive. The phone is more an umbilical cord than just a material good. Its a talisman. Its a magical object. Its a container.

The oven buzzer is beeping fifteen minutes gone, and I must keep to the time as the teeth need brushing and the shoes need putting on and Naoise needs waking from his sofa sleep.

After the school run

I am permitting myself the luxury of a little more me time. Wanted to record some observations; Naoise telling me about the spider the size of his thumb nail that could spin silk that was as strong as steel. Conversations in the playground, one mother telling me how getting her children to do tasks around her home has revolutionised her life in one weekend. I need this method, so she is sending me the details. There were rewards and age appropriate tasks care of a Montessori website. I definitely need this system. I cooked dinner and cleaned up last night and no one helped me. I am not in the business of bringing up boys who are incapable of helping out around the house.

The domestic is not gendered. The house is not my job. Its our job. Its a house we share as a family. I need to get the boys to muck in.

I have written a ridiculous list of to do’s, if I get just to cross off one thing from the list then that will be good.

I am dreaming of blog posts written on T-Towels. I am dreaming up ways to make my art into objects that might provide me with some income. A tea towel with a squirrel or a friendly fox probably would go down well, but not sure anyone wants my personal rantings immortalised on cotton. Or maybe they do?

Research

Embrace the messiness of UK arts and culture, Susan Jones, Monday 2nd November, The Guardian

Naked artist Poppy Jackson straddles the personal and political, Lyn Gardner, Monday 2nd November, The Guardian

The other KKK: how the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift tried to craft a new world, Jon Savage, Monday 2nd November, The Guardian

Bare Reality: 100 Women their breasts their stories , Laura Dodson

 

 

 

 

8.30am (sat on the sofa covered in blankets)

Naoise is snoozing in bed. Its Monday but for Naoise the half term holiday ends tomorrow. Today he has a lucky day at home with me as its one of those random teacher training days. We will fill the time with drawing, the homework that was never done, maybe baking and taking a friends dog for a walk. I am glad that he is sleeping, gives me a moment to write this.

Syd was feeling run down. Coldsores, sore throat. Last night he managed his history course work, just got it done at the last minute. He is really being very responsible about his studies, especially History which he loves, inspiring teacher who he joyfully talks about helps.

There were tears before school, but he was strong and resilient and he went. I will collect him in the car later. Syd likes to work on his own thing. Practice his guitar, play with his friends the structure of school is a challenge. I loved that he gave me a huge big hug. I loved that he showed me his vulnerabilities. I loved it that he needed me. We all need to feel needed, wanted. I am happy to be his anchor. I know this time of being needed and wanted is short lived. I know that my time with him is shorter now. Now that he is a young man.

I was awake at five again this morning. I am sick of waking early. My body is really struggling to readjust to the new winter time. I wake and I cannot rest. My head spins with ideas and things that I want to do and how to do them.

Naoise has a sniffly, snuffly pillow case that is his comforter. He does lots of creative rituals with his sniffle. He pokes a corner up his nose. He twirls it like a helicopter above his head. He wraps it around and around his arm like a bandage. He wears it over his head as if a hijab. He wraps it up like an umbilical cord around his hand until it forms knots. He rubs it against his nose. He wraps it around the back of his neck as if it is a scarf. I want to photograph all these performative actions that he has developed.

Are they actions to soothe his anxiety? What does this repetitive playing mean? Is it art?

I offered to make his swan painting into a cuddly toy. He declined my offer. I don’t like cuddly toys mummy, I have sniffle my pillow case as a comforter. 

Its deep fog outside. I cannot see the top of the hill.

Yesterday we went out for a family walk. I love to walk out with them all. Its never easy. Simply walking, the children compete for mine and Patricks attention. Me, Naoise and Patrick take photographs on our cameras, Syd practices at looking cool and winding his brother up. Winding his brother up is his favourite pastime and it drives us all to insanity.

The sun was so warm and bright casting a gentle light on where it fell. Leaves, himalayan balsam, stinging nettles dying back, tree roots, ferns, spagnum moss, mud, the frothy iron of river water.  So hot for the first day of November.

We walked in the woods. We played. We talked. We took photographs. It was a perfect day. Perfect bickering. Perfect when Naoise repeatedly threw off his wellies and we had to put them back on each time with him laughing back at us.

Being in a family and raising children is far far from perfect and ideal, its just ok. Its alright for it to be messy and uncontrolled and for fights and arguments to break out. There will always be conflict, always a battle for the pecking order.

There is harmony too.

There is joy in watching the children playing together in the river, balancing on a log. When Syd helps with Naoise. When he teases him.

A woman with her baby and her two other children walks past us. I could see how much work that she had on her hands. Carrying one and guiding two others. Another woman with a tiny new born baby strapped to her front also walks past us. I remember those days that dragged forever in a blur of baby looking after. I don’t want to go back there, however beautiful babies are, however broody I feel. I like my family just as it is. One small boy, one young man, one man and me.

The tap in the kitchen sink drip, drip, drips. A line of socks hang on the radiator to dry. The fog is lifting as the suns light brightens. I hear feet jumping to a stand on the floor boards in the attic.

Research

Third of women feel embarrassed breastfeeding in public, survey finds, Haroon Siddique, Monday 2nd November, The Guardian

Public figures sign letter seeking equality for mental health, Nadia Khomami, Monday 2nd November, The guardian

Why women bake: the healing power of a quiet sisterhood, Sophie Johnson, Sunday 1st November, The Guardian

7.59am (sat on the sofa under blankets)

Its foggy outside. There are cars passing on the main road. The washing machine is silent. I put on a wash around six when I got up for a glass of water and I fed it dirty clothes then. Its still. Its done its job. Its having a rest.

I went back for an hour or so. I am struggling to adjust to the clock changes, my body wants to wake up to the old time.

The front room is full of halloween clutter, a bag of dressing up clothes, a cyberman mask. The front room definitely needs de-cluttering it resembles more of a garage than a living space. Its a dumping ground for bags and coats and muddy shoes. The front door opens in on it.

I am dreaming up a day to celebrate this project. A listening day. I want to read extracts from each of the ten months. I want to read to people one to one. Get some feedback from them. I want it to be a time that I can read back, reflect and move forward. Get feedback from the listeners about how to make this project participatory. I have my own ideas but they are fixed, its good to keep things fluid. Find the unexpected.

I left a warm bed and a small boy. P tucked him in with me last night after we returned from the halloween party. I had wanted to sleep alone, it wasn’t worth making a fuss late at night though. I enjoy cuddling my little boy. I know he will grow quickly and then one day he won’t want me to cuddle him at all. He will want to push me away, laugh and ridicule me, question my authority, look at me with disgust. However understanding and kind and gentle I try to be he will challenge.

Its good having a small boy and a teenage boy. This age gap gives me some perspective. I know that my days of cuddles, and play and gifts from the playground are limited. I know that this is the golden time. These primary years are all fun. All together.

I still can’t bear to throw away the two last nappies that live in the bathroom cupboard. Naoise and his friend still like to dress up and pretend to be babies, they would miss them too if I threw them out. They will of cause one day be unable to put them on.

The cot in our bedroom is dismantled but still awaits a listing on eBay. I am so terribly slow at getting stuff out of the house. I hold on. I need to let go of these relics of early motherhood.

The half term holiday has passed too quickly. I have enjoyed the slow of the day. Not having to do the school run. Not having to keep to a schedule.

We all walked out together on the hills yesterday. Up, up and up and along the high ridge above Walsden. The path made of stone. The pack horse path. We saw strange ectoplasmic fungus, some donkeys and horses. No other people. Just us. Its good just to walk, all of us together. Its hard to find together time now that Syd is a teenager he just wants to be with his friends and if he isn’t with his friends he is counting down the hours and minutes till he can hang with them.

The fog is beginning to lift, I can see across the road, up the hill. I can see the leaves drooping, struggling to hang on. I can’t see the top of the hill that is still cloaked in the blanket of fog.

My head is fog. A foggy hangover of too much cider drunk. Halloween evening began with a can of cider at the working mans club. A can of cider drunk outside watching the children in their costumes run from street to street knocking at doors and asking for sweets. It was a good evening. Our gang of mums dressed as witches and vampires with knives sticking through heads and children as skeletons, monsters, ghouls, and nasties went home with bucket loads of sugar and even coins from a kind mans jar.

Research

I didn’t think it was much fun at the time but now I miss my children’s early years, Liz Frazer, Saturday 31st October 2015,

Germaine Greer: still fiery, still outspoken: the feminist lioness, Sunday 1st November 2015, Geraldine Bedell, The Guardian

What ancient Egypt tells us about a world without religious conflict, Ahdaf Soueif, Friday 30th October, The Guardian

8.58 am

Someone is a wake. I was hoping that they would stay asleep so I could write this. I have been up for an hour. Pottering. Hanging washing on the laundry rack and the radiator. Putting towels into the tumble dryer. I think its P I can hear, not the little steps of little boy or thundering steps of teenage boy.

So peace for a little longer.

Naoise looks like a halloween pumpkin now that both of his front teeth have come out. Its not raining this morning. Maybe we will manage a walk. Maybe we will carve the large orange pumpkin on the table in front of me.

Yesterday was a fiasco, and my back still hurts from five hours spent in a traffic not ever reaching our destination and just returning home. We completed an entire circle around Manchester and then skirted around the centre before heading back north east and over the hill to Yorkshire. I love it when we reach the top of the Backup road and drop down into the comfort of the Calder Valley. I wished yesterday that I had never left it. Me and Syd listened to a lot of music and radio yesterday and cursed at cars driven badly. We were glad just to get back alive and with the car still running. The car has been making a growling sound. The growls have been getting louder.

I dreamt that I was on a walk to a house in the forest. Other parents and their children from my friends school were trying to get to this house.  I was leaving and making my way up hill, when a flock of sheep and deer terrified came running down the hill. A large snarling wolf was in pursuit. We all ran into the house to take cover from the wolf. I remember little else of this dream, other than trying to find something to feed the ravenous wolf with, and feeling fearful.

When I first entered the kitchen this morning a robin was standing on the fence in the yard and it stared directly at me. Its been an age since I saw the baby robins. Since putting fat balls on the bay, the maple and the buddleia plants we have had more visitors mainly bluetits.

Syds phone has broken, he is desperate for a new one. The car needs mending at the garage, Syd needs a new phone. There is always something that needs maintaining or mending or replacing. I need a job, oh how I need a job so that each of these incidents is not as stressful as this. There is no fall back. There is no cushion. We will magic some money from somewhere. We will find a way.

I want to stage an event for M(other) Stories a reading day. I want to read to at least ten people from my studio. Ten extracts from ten months of writing.

I feel that this project has lost its way. I need  to be reading some theory again. Give it some structure Maybe it has a life of its own. Will I miss it when it has gone. When will I stop? Do I stop on the day that I started 16th December or do I keep writing until there are exactly 365 posts? I think it best I stop in the new year. It would then feel as if I had come completely full circle.

I am concerned that I am comfort eating again. Last night I ate cracker after cracker, chunk of cheese after chunk of cheese. Its cruel that I do this to myself. It happens when I am stressed when its the changing seasons, as it gets dark. I hate the lack of light and day. I am fearful about standing on the scales. I don’t want to face what I have done. I am the hungry wolf that needs constant feeding. I need to run. Run with the wolves.

Me and Naoise completed Moomins in Midwinter. He wants to read another Moomins. I like reading Moomins. Its calm and gentle and wise. I like to read books that reflect the season that I am living in. Books that deal with the passage of time and how nature affects humans.

The washing machine tumble dryer gently chugs. So much to do. So little time. What a messy house. Where to begin, where to end?

Research

Christian Boltanski: the artist counting the seconds till his own demise, Sarah Moroz, Monday 26th October, The Guardian

We filmed our baby’s birth – it’s wonderful to watch, Laura Brown, Saturday 31st October, The Guardian