I thought motherhood would feel magical, but it didn’t. On my second night of labour, the clocks went back, signalling the start of winter here. And with this abrupt change, I began a new life as a Mother, a structure existing merely to sustain a new life. The cries of my child - naked as the branches of the newly bare trees surrounding our home - came with a shocking violence for which I was entirely unprepared. A primal experience in which my entire being turned into another human’s sanctuary overnight.
Privately, I was ripped apart, every emotion overloaded my senses. Yet publicly a silence had closed in, I felt the need to censor myself. My camera became a therapeutic tool with which to pull myself back out of the fog of early motherhood. I poured myself out in front of it; seeing, accepting and occasionally even celebrating my new being. With winter had come peace; space to hunker down and nurture, a quiet space for love to grow.
I am so tired of the standard parents are still expected to live up to. It feels liberating to step out of these expectations, to accept the duality of the experience and lay bare its brutality.
A note on the title
- The line; ‘I Wake to Listen;’ is taken from Sylvia Plath’s 1961 poem; ‘Morning Song’ written after the birth of her daughter, Frieda.