There is no greater joy than in allowing oneself to trust the process of making and unmaking and remaking—not with the intent of external validation but to touch the essence of one’s soul
Parenting requires a kind of submission where you make peace with the fact that the decision to parent comes with consequences, and one cannot then be resentful that a child demands your energy and attention. Pic/iStock
By the time you read this, I will have hopefully delivered our second child. This despatch comes to you from the balcony of our south-facing apartment. I’m basking in the glow of the early swpring sun, overwhelmed by all the newness that has burst forth. Trees in ecstasy, speckling white, pink and rose-red blossoms, surrounded by bees and other cross-pollinators. After more than a week of cloudy skies, the heavens seemed to have gaped open. What a lovely time to prepare for birth.
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I feel relaxed and ready. Perhaps because I allowed myself the time I needed to nest, to get our home in order. All our cupboards are organised, our storeroom has been rid of redundancies, my bookshelves have been cleaned and sorted, our toddler’s toys neatly sorted… We got a whole stash of newborn clothes from a friend, which means hundreds of euros saved. The crib has been set up, the blankets have been washed and readied, and our new Manduca carrier has arrived too. We are sorted on perhaps every front. As someone who has had to wrestle once again with gestational diabetes, I am so looking forward to not having to monitor my blood sugar four times a day and not having to inject myself with insulin in order to process a basic meal.
The anticipation around one’s second child is very different in tenor from the first time around. Three years ago, I hardly knew what to expect, despite everything I had read, despite all the mental preparations. This time I am already a mother; I have taken stock of all my mistakes. This time the electric pump is already here at home; in case the baby doesn’t latch deep enough. This time we’ve already bought formula, just in case I’m too exhausted to pump… we’ve considered all the variables, all the things that went wrong last time. It’s like being presented with the opportunity for a do-over, a chance to get things right, to not only follow instinct but harvest our experience.
I’ve been thinking back to some of my early columns, when I felt certain about not wanting children, not wanting to be a mother. Then I met my partner and something changed. Here I am, a few months away from turning 40, about to be what the medical world calls a geriatric mother, advanced in age but seasoned in a way a 30-something mother could never be. Because, over the last three years, I learned the most valuable lesson about parenting, that it requires a specific kind of submission. Not the kind where you relinquish your subjectivity in order to be available for your child, but the kind where you make peace with the fact that the decision to parent comes with consequences, and one cannot then be resentful that a child demands your energies and attentions, because that is what nurturing means. I remember the early days of the post-partum haze, when I wanted our child to sleep so I could have a break from having to be continually absorptive and attentive. This time around, I have cleared my work plate. As a freelancer, I don’t have the luxury of extensive post-partum leave, so three weeks is the most I can afford. However, this time around, we have organised our finances better so that my partner can claim six months of paternal leave. This feels like a hard-earned luxury, him staying home so I can continue to work as we find our groove as an extended family.
This week, I also signed a contract with a local publishing house that bought the rights to the Italian and German translations of my next book. Last week, I signed a contract with an Indian literary agency that will represent the book in the Indian subcontinent. I cannot begin to describe the pride and joy I feel in knowing that I wrote a whole book over a two-year time frame, as I grew into motherhood. I don’t mean this as a brag. To know that in those moments of fragile vulnerability, while balancing full-time motherhood with a full-time job, I managed to do the thing I love most, the thing that gives me purpose and direction in life—write—fills me with deep satisfaction. This is why, even though I have spent the last couple of weeks nesting, I simultaneously seem to be harbouring an empty-nest syndrome, because the container I had been using to collect my words got filled with all my plenty. Now I am compelled to seek out another empty bucket, another vessel to contain my subjectivity. This is both exciting and overwhelming. I remain guided by Clarice Lispector’s directive in Agua Viva, to ‘let myself happen’. What greater joy could there be than to submit to the holy divine, to allow oneself to trust the process of making and unmaking and remaking, not with the intent of external validation but to touch the essence of one’s soul?
Deliberating on the life and times of every woman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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