Writing Through the Heat

We're in the middle of a heatwave! Funnily enough people seem to expect me to handle it well because of my South African roots, but after five years of living on this island, I've lost all ability to tolerate heat. In fact, the weather has brought home to me (as if I needed reminding) just how different life is once you're a mom.

Pre-baby life, heat like this would have meant, yes, perhaps a bit of grumping around at work wishing I was on Brighton beach instead - but my every spare moment would have been spent relaxing with friends or a book and allowing my body to go limp with sun pleasure. Now - well, it involves pushing some thirty pounds up a very steep hill at least once a day - except on the weekend when I 'hid' at home - sweating like a pig, and making sure that a small being completely dependent on me doesn't develop heat stroke.

Relaxing on the beach? Forget it. J wants to walk everywhere and is absolutely impervious to the blazing sunshine on his head. I'll be wilting while he stands quite happily throwing pebbles into the sea, or runs around chasing seagulls in the park. I seem to have been reduced to a bottom line of seek.shade.now. However, this weekend I'm looking forward to Hanover Day, the biggest street celebration in Brighton, and a good friend's birthday party in the park, all of which will allow me to include J in the summer social life.

I've decided to take the plunge and start posting poems on my blog. Here is one I wrote as part of my homework for the Mom's Writing Group I started a few weeks ago. It's called 'I write because':

I write because I am alive

I write to calm the inner fiery girl who wants it all,

now. I write because it’s the first thing I loved:

holding a pen, letting it drift over the page,

waking up these people who never existed

before.

I write because I cannot draw.

I write to clear out the old

To make way for the new

I write because I don’t want to be a boring mom

and talk about hovering.

I write because my home is on the page

I write because the words were born in me,

no visceral experience can

replace the feeling of a word

cutting right through to my core

I write because I’m 29 and I don’t have time to play around anymore.

I write to sift through my pain and bring it into the light

and see that it gleams like crystal.

I write because I could never catch a ball

or ride a bike or kiss a boy or be wanted

when I was thirteen.

I write because I can reach your mind and know my own.

I write because it saves my life.

I write because I am alive.

And I write because acid trips are

not enough, sex is not enough,

a warm day on a blanket on the grass is

not enough. I am enough

in the moment I write.