Summer At Last

The summer is finally here, and I finally have time to update this blog! It's been sadly neglected, what with being computer-less for 2 months, then being in South Africa with my son J for a month, and recently simply spending more time in my lovely garden enjoying the sunshine. Our time in S.A. visiting family and friends was a quiet, reflective space from which I returned full of enthusiasm and motivation to tackle some projects that have long been on the back burner - sorting out my filing, for example, but other more exciting things too.

A year ago I ran a couple of writing workshops for mothers, working around themes of motherhood. My intention to start an ongoing group for moms has now finally flourished, and the first group meeting took place yesterday at my house. There were three of us and we hope more will join us soon...although space is limited due to the little ones! We used colours in the room to jump-start a writing exercise, and explored the topic 'I am/I am not', which I've often used myself, as inspired by one of my creative writing guru's, Natalie Goldberg.

It felt good to be part of a living, evolving writing space again, as it's been so long since I attended the Poets Cornered group in Hove, which had been my writing inspiration and support for 3 years. I like the fact that we're all women, and all mothers, as this creates a sense of community and unity, and an appreciation of the issues we all face. Of course it's challenging trying to write amongst the noise and movement of babies and toddlers, but I hope that we can forge our way through.

For now my main writing project is my short story collection, - I say 'main' tentatively, since it is receiving far less time and attention than I'd like - which I began during the First Steps in Fiction course I did a few months ago. Its theme being motherhood, I do sometimes long to escape the very topic and do something completely different. Like return to my sprawling novel about witches, druids and forests...but somehow the huge head space I need to do that work is not there. If it's snatched moments I get, then short stories are more doable for me right now, although it's a form that I'm still learning. I'm writing an article a week on complementary therapies for a website called NHS247, due to be re-launched in July. I'm aching to write poetry again, especially after digging out my old copies of 'Mslexia' (magazine for women writers) and reading some of the prize-winning poets in there. Reading a 2004 interview with poet and novelist Anne Michaels inspired me: mother of two small children, she apparently wrote in the wee hours of the morning, every night - dedication or what!

Unfortunately, I am far less dedicated to my writing, and I do need sleep. Especially as J continues to wake in a similar pattern to a newborn. His talking has come on a long way; his development really spiked while we were in South Africa and everyone saw a big difference on our return. He's now saying short simple sentences like 'Look, there ball' and 'Ball box in', 'helping' with the gardening, and walking around the streets of Brighton pointing at, and naming, absolutely everything.

My yoga teaching has evolved into doing one-to-one sessions rather than classes, which feels right for now. I've been hard at work getting the word out, doing yet more fliers, etc etc. As ever, time for my own practice is scanty, but I'm getting a lot out of meeting with my Kundalini Yoga sangat fortnightly. J now says 'yog, yog' when he sees my mat, and 'joins in' by copying the exercises - he's particularly proficient at spinal twists and life nerve stretch!

My Breastfeeding Counsellor Training, begun in March, is now taking on more speed as I have drafted my first two essays and been busy 'interviewing' mothers at the Hanover Breastfeeding Drop-in about their experiences. I'm very excited and motivated about this path, and find my voluntary work at the Drop-In so worthwhile and moving. To talk to a mother who is struggling to breastfeed and full of the emotion of that, and be able to move with her through the pain and somehow help to contain it, is one of the most fulfilling and inspiring things I have done.

Catching Up

It's been ages since I've written on this blog, and I miss it! Life has been moving at a terrific pace, and I've been busy writing another blog (it's my more 'commercial one'), doing a fiction-writing course with all the attendant homework, and of course, mothering my now very vocal as well as mobile toddler, J!

At 17 months J is now saying more new words than I can count, able to conduct rudimentary 'conversations', and has an ever-increasing capacity to make his needs and wants known. He has been positively obsessed with 'cook-cook' for months now, not only in our cooking, but doing his own pretend preparation of meals, improvising with whatever is available (but usually insisting on having real pots and pans). I feel more confident as a mother and am enjoying it a lot more, though as always there are exasperating and exhausting moments. I'm also just recovering from a bout of mastitis, which, fortunately, is the first time I've experienced any sort of breastfeeding problem - but this left me wiped out for a good few days.

I've been touched by the comments people have left on my blog after reading my article in Juno magazine about surrendering to motherhood. It's wonderful to hear that other mothers and mother-writers feel the same as I do about motherhood as a spiritual journey.

I recently read Buddhism for Mothers which takes some of these ideas further, and gives us real illumination on how to live in a more peaceful, centred way as a mother. One of the most useful concepts in this book was how to witness the many different passing moods and emotions of parenting, without getting caught up in them and giving them too much power. My meditation practice is always an effort to develop this ability, but I've been inspired by this practice to make all my mothering acts a moving, living meditation, and indeed my whole life.

The last few months have seen more emphasis on the non-fiction side of my writing career. I've been continuing to write for Suite 101 and seen a gradual increase in traffic to my articles; writing an almost daily, paid blog; and doing all the research that goes with those endeavours.

My computer breaking down a couple of weeks ago, however, has facilitated a shift in focus back to my fiction. As soon as I had to step off the treadmill of real and self-imposed deadlines, I realised that fiction is really what my writing soul yearns for, and that I need to give it some space to flourish. The 10-week course I'm doing, 'First Steps in Fiction', has given me impetus to write every week, and to start a short story collection, and I wrote a couple of exactly-70-word paragraphs for Paragraph Planet which are both appearing on the site. and now that I have to fall back on mostly handwritten work, I'm able to slow down and allow ideas to percolate. It's good to be back in a more creative writing mood. It's all very well being 'productive' all the time, but then I can start to forget why I am a writer in the first place.

Inspired by Paulo Coelho's The Witch of Portobello, a fantastic book a friend gave me for my birthday (my 29th) on 22nd February, I have started to think about my 'witch' novel again - which I'd put on the 'back burner' since last year. The ideas Coelho explores are very similar to what I intend in my novel, and his book helped me to realise that there is a way of expressing these concepts - of the power of nature, the Goddess, the feminine energy - through story. Coelho has a disarmingly simple way of conveying the most complex ideas, and a very unique writing style. I also felt moved by his book's message of living one's truth, regardless of how it may inconvenience those around you.

Ideas in the Night, and Seeing my Work in Print

Funny how so many of my creative ideas and writing thoughts for my blog come while I'm putting J to bed, and can't immediately get them down on paper. His bedtime routine takes up to an hour, although it's been swifter lately since I've figured out the feeding-him-to-sleep-in-the-Ergo trick. It must be my equivalent of 'having ideas in the shower'.

With an average of eight wakings per night, for 14 months, I reckon that to be about 2000 times I've responded to J in the night. Whew. Every one of those interactions, or at least the cumulative effect of all that consistent night-time parenting, must be instilling some sort of security, right?

I wonder. Another mom was telling me how her 10 month old just doesn't seem to notice whether she is there or not, and is happy as long as there is stuff going on and other people to interact with. He doesn't seem to have hit the 7-month-separation-anxiety stage that J seemed to have virtually from birth (and it only worsened at 7 months). Another mom remarked, "Oh, it's because he's so secure. You've made him so secure." And I thought, what, and I haven't, because he cries every time I leave the room? I don't think so.

It seems they are all different, and we just work out our individual strategies to deal with it. I now almost enjoy my 'quiet time' with J when he wakes up and I get to enjoy his cuddliness, and also just try to be in the moment. I sing mantra's to him sometimes so that doubles up as spiritual practice I guess ;) Multi-tasking and all that.

Yesterday I received a copy of Juno magazine in the post - the winter issue in which my article 'Ten Months on: Surrendering to the Shifting Tides of Motherhood' appears. An odd feeling to see photo's of me and J, and actually read my words in print. As usual I devoured the rest of the magazine, a brilliant one, and was inspired by its articles on the research behind home education and on the role of media advertising in children's upbringing. I feel proud to be part of a publication that provides such a welcome contrast to the mainstream parenting magazine industry, which all too often focuses on 'controlling' children and improving their 'behaviour', rather than looking at them as whole beings. I'm re-reading the brilliant Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn and his thoughts on behaviourism and why it shouldn't be applied to human beings, are sobering indeed. I feel freshly resolved to commit to the 'path less taken' as far as discipline is concerned.

Mother Guilt

A few days ago I picked up a book called 'Healthy Mother, Better Breastfeeding' by Francesca Naish and Janette Roberts. In line with my current field of study I thought it might be helpful. And parts of it are: I particularly liked the affirmations to use when you are feeding, to help relax and settle into it instead of thinking "Oh god not again, I have a million things to do" which I think many mothers suffer from in the beginning (and even not in the beginning). I also liked the information about herbs that are safe or unsafe for use when breastfeeding, and the way the book normalises co-sleeping and night-feeding. We need more of that to battle against the Gina Fords and Tracey Hoggs of the world!

But what I didn't like was the strong implication that the mother's duty is to be completely and healthy in every way. No coffee, certainly no alcohol, no non-organic foods, only purified water, etc. Tinned food is suspect as is just about every kind of synthetic material in your house. It was so profoundly unrealistic. And also hugely middle-class bias. Hey, I'm supposedly middle-class and since being a full-time mother I can't even afford organic food for the most part.

It worries me because this is not what we need to get more women breastfeeding. I suspect it will put off those who already think it slightly inconvenient. My research, for example Gabrielle Palmer's excellent The Politics of Breastfeeding, leads me in the opposite direction: a woman can breastfeed successfully and give her infant or child all he/she needs, on a barely adequate diet. Yes, the woman may suffer nutritionally if her diet is poor, but the baby won't. The baby takes what it needs to survive. This is particularly why breastfeeding is so crucial in Third World countries, where the water is often not only 'impure' but downright dangerous, and the food may be of limited variety.

And, of course, I felt the familiar mother guilt coming on as I read about all I 'should' be doing to give my baby the purest breast milk possible. Luckily I'm wise to these twitches these days and I quickly put the book down and went on doing the best I can, with what I have to work with (which isn't perfection, sorry ladies).

Reflecting on My South African Past

I just finished reading an excellent book set in Kenya, Away from You by Melanie Finn. Although I'm from South Africa, it struck so many chords with me: the common history of our countries and the brutally honest way the author deals with it, interwoven with strong characterisation and the most lyrical prose. It's not often I read a book and wish it wouldn't end!

It's good to be connected back up to my African past: something it's easy to forget in my day-to-day city life in Brighton. I grew up in a place of contradictions, and that is what this book so accurately conveys: the poverty alongside wealth and greed, the beauty beside appalling devastation, and the love/hate relationship its own natives often have with the continent. Like the main character, I am also living in a land that is not my native one. Yet I have acclimatised to it so well, I'm scarcely aware of this most of the time.

When I try to explain race relations in South Africa and the phenomenon of white guilt to my partner, it all seems so obvious to me: but incomprehensible to him. Which is why it was so refreshing to read this book and feel at home in an idiom where I don't have to explain myself.

I don't miss South Africa much anymore; when I do, it's more my own personal memories of the place, and my childhood and university days, that I think about, rather than the country itself. I have an ambivalent relationship with it to say the least. I wanted to move to England since I was a teenager, and idealised the country. Watching snippets of the film This is England last night, I realised how foreign this country still is to me, in many ways.

Advice, Tantrums and Doing Less

J and I have both been battling colds and coughs, which somewhat marred our last weekend's trip to London. Funnily enough though I feel a lot more content coming out the other end of it, more in tune with myself. Being ill slows me right down, because I haven't got the energy to make too many over-ambitious plans and run around that much. Hence, this week has not been a productive one, writing-wise, although I've been teaching a fair amount of yoga, doing some cover classes. I was too ill to teach one on Sunday and had to cancel, which I've never done before, but I literally didn't have a 'voice' to teach. I sound, as I've been teased today, like an old spinster - "Pass the sugar, dearie"- or perhaps an adolescent boy whose voice is starting to break. Not the usual husky deep voice I get when I have a bad chest, just this. I'm sucking furiously on Fisherman's Friends and hoping it will be adequate to teach tomorrow.

Actually I'm settling into winter now, although it's become frighteningly freezing quite suddenly the last three days. I enjoy feeling cosy and anticipating the warmth of my home when I return! I have done some 'free writing' in coffee shops which keeps me going, but my novel has been untouched and I'm dying to get back to it. Today was my breastfeeding peer support course, thought-provoking as ever. This time it got me thinking about why all of the counselling courses I've done insist that no advice can be given. I find this deeply frustrating because I think, once the empathy and the reflective listening and all that is in process, there does come a point, especially in the field of breastfeeding problems, where some suggestions and information are needed - indeed, wanted. How to know if or when to steer things in that direction? When someone is openly asking you, "what do I do?", and you know of things that could help them, how can you not say something? In matters of 'what should I do about my relationship problem etc', then sure, the wisdom and the answers must lie within, but when people come to a place explicitly offering breastfeeding support, surely they expect some information and possibilities to consider?

I have been struggling to deal with J's tantrums: his frustration at not being able to touch certain things, and his seeming inability to let go of it; as well as his resistance to just about anything I wanted to do: change his nappy, dress him, put his coat on, or put an end to an activity so that we could, say, go out. It mystified me as it seemed too early in his development for him to be having tantrums (books say 27 months!) and so of course, in typical mommy-self-bashing style, I wondered if I was doing wrong. Fortunately I found this blog about a mother's experience of what Dr Sears would call a 'high needs child', which put things in perspective for me - I realised it could be so much worse, and on the whole, although strong-willed, J is a delight. Fortunately the cycle seems to have passed and the last couple days he has been better, perhaps in part because I've calmed down a bit and have been more 'present' with him.

I have a lot of blog topics planned...but I'm trying to fit my yoga practice into my evenings now having given up on doing it in the morning - J is just too clingy and I can't get into it at all. And trying to get to bed earlier too...have felt better for some early nights and lie-ins. Will try to write more regularly on here too so as to get all the thoughts out before they build up too much!

P.S. The picture has nothing to do with anything. I just thought it was funny!

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