round and round the garden

Hello again. It’s been awhile. I’ve been having trouble working out what to say. In a strange way, being in hospital was the perfect place to write. I had time and time and time. 30 minute showers. Prescribed bed rest. And drama happening almost constantly. Either within my own body as it strained and surged and tried to keep Oscar inside, or outside around me as women came and went with their own stories and dramas and heartache and joy. There was a certain clarity in the eye of the storm. Of late though, things are murkier, muddled, less defined. I am muddled and less defined. I’ve started 2, 3, 4 posts, but they never seem to have an end and so I say I’ll come back to them tomorrow and the next day and the next. I circle.

Today I was thinking about how much of what I do lies uncompleted.

There is a vegetable patch we half dug and half mulched on a glorious sunny day before The Storm. Picking fat worms out of the earth, heaving wheel barrows, stomping in our wellies.

There is Martha’s bedroom whose walls are painted but whose skirting board is not.

There is the compost heap built, but with no compost in it yet.

There is the washing on the kitchen table half folded.

There are the cardigans for the kids half knitted.

There are stories half written, trousers half mended and courses half completed.

//Pause: I’ve been away and come back. The washing is now folded, but not put away. I have wiped bums and fed babies and answered doors and looked at art works and put a fairy door on a tree, which turned in to an elaborate building of a fairy village in our ‘forest’. This is also now in ‘Phase One’ of completion. [Insert images of our toadstool festooned fairy house and fairy bridge. I’ve spent 3 days trying to get the photos to upload to no avail, so you’ll have to use your imagination.] I started to stomp on some of the soil by the veggie patch, but had to stop as Martha fell off a log pile. The kids are now making Mother’s Day cards and I have fixed a stapler, painted every second toe and finger nail on two children and rescued Max from one of his regular falls down the very inconvenient planter hole in our hall. I circle.//

And so I got to thinking that maybe these posts don’t have to be completed. Maybe I should just start when I can and drop them here as they are. Life is mostly lacking a narrative arc anyway, right?

So. I’ve decided I’ll post once every 14 days. And the post will be whatever has gathered in that time. Maybe it’ll be a tidy story. Maybe it’ll be more of my eternal circling. Let’s see.

// Pause to open Mother’s Day cards and presents. Be still my beating heart. //
[insert the kids Mother’s Day art works. They were super cute.]

Posts I started to write and never finished include:

One about gardening. About digging and getting your fingernails dirty and finding fat worms. About being physical. About lifting and hauling outdoors.

One about belonging. About not feeling Irish until my 20’s. About Catholic Schools and Protestant schools and boys schools and girls schools and how I don’t want to send my kids to any of them.

One about The Great Snow of 2018. About no wifi and no electricity. About not having gone to the shops for supplies. About lovely deep snow. And sideways snow. And Martha being blown over in the snow. About cooking with leftovers by candlelight and about how much food we have when we think there’s nothing in the fridge. About the ritual of keeping a fire lit 24 hours a day to keep warm. About all sleeping together in one room by the fire. About the fun of it and the I’m-going-to-explode cabin fever of it. About playing chess with my son and daughter. About the relief of getting out and down to the beach after a week of being snowed in.

//Pause to hoover the kitchen after yesterday’s trifle making [insert in your imagination an image of Martha and Max baking. Martha is naked except for an apron] and work out an electrical circuit issue for Max from his science kit (it got the better of me) //

One about plastic. About trying to not have so much of it around. About the battle of it. And what I do to try to keep it at bay.

And one about women. I wanted to write one for International Women’s Day. And then before Mother’s Day. And now here we are on Mother’s Day (edit: the day after Mother’s Day) (edit: two days after Mother’s Day) ) (edit: 5 days after Mother’s Day) and I haven’t quite got to it. I’ve been thinking about strong women and soft women and brave women and fearless women. And about how we are different to men. That equality does not mean we have to be the same. // pause to make an emergency lunch at 11am for Martha who was overcome with the hunger // About the fact I’m not sure I want to Lean In. That the opposite is also hard. About how my son is far more sensitive than my daughter in many ways. About how she will spend hours caring for dolls and teddys with such sweet maternal attention and he will spend that time building a marvellous rope and pulley system on our stairs. About child birth. About all the amazing women I know that surround me. About one woman

// pause to do an elaborate wash up of breakfast without running water. Water has been gone in kitchen since yesterday (edit: it’s now been two days) (edit:day 3). //

About how you never know how hard someone is finding it all. About an old schoolfriend and mother who found it too hard. About how we need to look out for each other.

// pause to pack swim bags and snacks and go meet Brian returned from Iceland. Pause to go for a swim in the pool. To look out at the sea and decide feck it and run like a mad woman down and into the choppy waves in the rain. //

//pause as I type about the pause to stand up and sort of jiggle about and sway in the hope Oscar stays asleep in the sling. I type peter-pointer style from a swaying stand. //

I also wanted to mention that Oscar’s smile is delicious. It is lopsided and eye-bright. He also says aghgrrrrrrldt by way of greeting every morning.

I’ll stop now, or I’ll circle forever. See you in two weeks.