Sighing....
Quaffing at chocolates...
Ghin chews contemplatively on a french fry...
Is this organic, local, and fried in non-hydrated transfat, he asked me...
Could they possibly stop playing that very noisy music by 50 cents?
Why do chavs wear their hair like that? Do they injure each other during their head butting sessions?
Oh, i've been so tired over the last few days. At about 4 pm, everything starts to spiral into a meltdown phase. If i could describe it, i begin to feel as if i'm starting to float a little... and then i begin to sway... like a helium filled belloon. Then i start looking at the clock and wondering why there must be two hours between four and six and if i started dinner now, it would be too early, but i don't know what i would do between now and then. Why does this happen...? I don't know. Perhaps it is life after the intense period of Ghin's teething bout, i think. Possibly it's the six am mornings followed by days and days of running about looking after the kids. Filling Oisin's time with something meaningful to do while making sure that we hit home at all the right times to ensure that Ghin gets a good sleep. If anyone tells me that being a full-time mother is a cop out, i WILL deck them, pacifism or no pacifism. I have tried full-time work - i have won scholarships, done exams and written theses, taken part in poetry slams, worked 20 hour days, i have done NGO work in voluntary capacities, sat on Select Committees, been at BBC Council meetings, travelled airports to attend three day meetings, done rappoteuring work or international meetings, organised conferences, handled media, taken part in chat shows and been interviewed on TV and i can tell you without hesitation, repetition or deviation, that being a full-time mother is definitely the MOST DIFFICULT and CHALLENGING thing i have ever done. It may say something about my life prior to being a full-time mother, but while this is certainly the most fulfilling position i've ever been in, it is also relentless.
Of course full-time motherhood in Singapore WAS quite, quite different. There life was a doss. No yelling baby in the back seat, no cooking or cleaning, no laundry, no unhoovered carpets or toilets waiting to be washed or sheets needed to be changed. No thinking about schedules, save for the classes that we had chosen for Oisin. And of course the support of family. I think back to when we put Oisin in daycare. I still shudder at the thought of placing him with strangers for 8 hours straight... however, it did mean that we dropped him off, got on with my life BC (Before Children) and then picked him up in the evening when we fed him and put him to bed. It was that simple. I recall the resentment when he woek at 6 am at the weekends, how lost i felt on Sunday mornings as to what we could do. The thought that if we were in Singapore at least we could take him for a walk or to the markets, or somewhere. In Belfast it rained and rained and rained and nowhere was open.
Of course things are a lot better now by way of handling all that, but full-time motherhood, yeah, that IS something else. What i think it is is the sheer selflessness that is required. You are required to place yourself at the foot of the child/ren and then cater to their needs. That and the sense that you are not in control, especially when he's crying in the high chair and you need to get all those dishes washed is so hard. It seems mundane, but it is also the loudest pivot on which the axis of my world revolves round. Don't sweat the small stuff, i say to myself, he'll be grown up before you know it and then you'd have wasted all those minutes and days wishing that he was grown up - and one day he will be...
And so, the sutra goes on...
Today when i was running, i listened to a documentary on plastic surgery. It seems to me that the consumerist society is experiencing some sort of intense collapsing in on itself. I see it especially in Adbusters, which i thought used to be a good magazine, until it became the ugly mirror in which consumerism was reflected in and in so doing became the exact same thing as the subject it was attempting to critique. Self-absorbed, angry, narccisistic, arrogant and fragile...the ranting of the frustrated who will never find what they are looking for... too clever for it's own good, i'm referring to both Adbusters as well as consumerism. Increasingly, i find these attempts to find the 'truth' or write the truth wear me out. Now that i only listen to what i hear as narrative, i cannot participate in the attempts of narrative to pass itself off as dogma.
However, dogma and truth aside, and returning to daily life, i am painfully aware that my days must have some structure. This was quite good when i first came home... i did something everyday which made me feel that i was getting on top of things. Like cleaning out the microwave. Like putting away Oisin's old clothes. Like getting rid of bags and bags of my own clothes. Like changing the sheets. Like asking the council to remove the election posters. Like cleaning out the hall. You see, even as i write this, i think i'm being very hard on myself. I've done LOADS already...so what i really, really need, is a holiday. And a good book. There's nothing a good book won't solve. In fact, i've discovered i have in my possession a copy of Balthazar by Lawrence Durrell. I think i'll unearth that and read it. There's nothing like a spot of Durrell to cheer me up.
Of course, i could just read some mystic poetry....
The sky becomes one with its clouds,
the waves with their mist.
In HEave's starry river, a thousand sails dance.
As if dreaming, I return to the place
where the Highest lives,
and hear a voice from the heavens:
Where am i going?
I answer, "The road is long,"
and sigh; soon the sun will be setting.
Hard to find words in poems to carry amazement:
on its ninety-thousand-mile wind,
the huge inner bird is soaring.
O wind, do not stop -
My little boat of raspberry wood
has not yet reached the Immortal Islands.
- Li Qingzhao, 1084 - 1115?
