Steen Ink

 

When I left Canada 12 years ago,  I projected chaotic events in my personal life upon the landscape and began feeling as if it was Canada who’d fallen madly out of love with me, had chewed me up and spat me out here in the North of Ireland. 

It was a season scant with choice over my own standing in the world, hemmed in by babies and uncomfortable under the new title of single mother. But I seized what choice I had left; the choice of perspective, to recall to memory or try to forget. So I swept away all of Canada, wide and expanse as it is, I severed almost all contact,  each CBC show discontinued to me, all fondness of the landscape snuffed out, Canada was dead to me and I was not visiting her grave.

I turned my focus macro and local. The day I got the keys to my new home I hung a picture on the wall that displayed the words ‘Love Your Town’.  This was the mission I assigned myself. As the song goes, If you can’t be with the one you love,  honey, love the one (town) your (stuck) with. Largely, I’ve succeeded. 

There’s been turbulence, tantruming toddlers have grown into budding teens,  jobs have changed, relationships have came & went and each time, when dust settles I find m
yself along with that dust - settled.  A settler in new uncharted path, setting up place names, and mapping each step for the next person. Handmade bunting hangs in our apple tree, displaying the letters S-T-E-E-N  C-A-S-T-L-E.  This is my queendom, where I am contented, still and calm, where Canada chewed me up and spat me out, growing new things, forgetting the old. 

But 12 years on, I arrived at the right emotional distance to consider a return.  I planned carefully, tentatively tiptoeing my way around the idea of revisiting the scene, approaching the idea like my cat taps the remote each evening, just checking it isn’t a snake. 

 When the plane flew over northern New Brunswick, all came back. Rolling forests spilling on for hundreds of miles, endless lakes and rivers for swimming, and the people, good god the people, salt of the earth, fresh faced and genuine, their voices sounding like a chorus of old friends singing me home.  I thought I might go full exposure therapy; revisit all the old haunts and meet their ghosts. But I followed my own lead and nestled into the friendliest of sanctuary instead, breathing deep, reclaiming somewhat, but also providing introductions for the me I am now to the Canada that always was.

Upon return to my castle, I’m reconciling that I now have two homes,  like taking on two lovers, I’m preoccupied and restless.  But with diary open and flight scanner bookmarked,  I know now I need not subdivide my heart nor make a spotless mind. Forgetting was simpler, but remembering is richer. Walking through the park tonight, I’m still loving the one I’m with,  announcing my place in the family of things, belonging wherever I tread.

Maternal Mental Health Week has came to a close and I’ve found it so refreshing to read peoples stories via #realmotherhood . Today my relentless timehop feed boldly reminded me that I might share a snippet of my own story. 

Just one year ago I took this photo,




I was on extended sick leave with stress (read: barely keeping it together), every day was a major struggle.  These two little notebooks went everywhere with me and both were independently inspired by two heroes of the motherhood. 

The Next 60 Seconds – was by super-micro to-do list book, inspired by the uncontainable Caitlan Moran who once wrote an open letter titled “To the Girls I Meet at Book Signings”.  I still can’t read it without brining on tears – but I strongly recommend you give it a go.  The letter signs off:

You will never, ever have to deal with more than the next 60 seconds.
Do the calm, right thing that needs to be done in that minute. The work, or the breathing, or the smile. You can do that, for just one minute. And if you can do a minute, you can do the next.
Pretend you are your own baby. You would never cut that baby, or starve it, or overfeed it until it cried in pain, or tell it it was worthless. Sometimes, girls have to be mothers to themselves

Reading Moran’s sage advice I realised I could manage some sort of control in a turbulent time. So I created a Next 60 Seconds book, in fact I had two of them to ensure I’d always have one at hand. They contain very important lists like 

drink water (✓) 
do dishes (✓) 
text hollie (✓)  
Listen to Kate Tempest (✓)

When the thought of going on was far too much, I zoomed in on that very moment, made a tiny plan and implemented it. And just like that, minute by minute, I did go on. 

The second notebook ‘Contributions’ was borrowed from Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant’s book ‘Option B: Facing adversity, building resistance and finding joy.’ – Grant became Sandberg’s therapist in the early days of her grieving her husband and father of her young children.   In the book Sandberg describes how Grant encouraged her to write down three things she did well every day for 6 months:

"Adam [Grant] and his colleague Jane Dutton found that counting our blessings doesn't boost our confidence or our effort, but counting our contributions can. Adam and Jane believe this is because gratitude is passive: it makes us feel thankful for what we receive. Contributions are active: they build our confidence by reminding us that we can make a difference."

I didn’t do this for very long, but there were definitely some days when I found it helpful to force myself to find something, no matter how small, to be proud of myself for.  One particular day It just says “Stayed in work despite SO MUCH TEARS and got some proper stuff done”.

These techniques, along with a mood tracker, an incredible family, a handful of faithful friends (note: it only takes a handful) and an understanding employer – got me through a very difficult time. 

In the midst of all of this, I was still a mum doing mum things.  When the kids enquired as to the reason for my tears, I always replied “I just have a headache”.  I’ll never forget the night, after being taken to a church event with their auntie, they came running in, so enthusiastic and told me they’d written down a prayer for me and my headaches.  I bit my lip and looked sheepishly over little shoulders to their auntie who gave a sympathetic smile, knowing full well that ‘headache’ was code word for ‘mummy might be losing her mind – but you don’t need to know that’.  

Motherhood, having little people to care and be responsible for, didn’t make my mental health any better, but it did keep me alive. It kept me around for long enough to learn from other mums like Sandberg and Moran – who helped me by sharing their own reality. 

So this is my late submission to the Maternal Mental Heath Week theme of #realmotherhood, take care of yourselves, you are never beyond help and to borrow heavily from Moran’s open letter:  Sometimes Mums have to be Mums to themselves.

Today, In the library, whilst supervising the kids and their homework, I attempted to squeeze in a bit of my own personal study. I was reading (*trying to read) an academic book regarding the place of Single Mothers in society and throughout history. Scanning through the pages I came across one paragraph that demanded my full attention, it read: 

One has only to look at Native American and African American communities to find alternatives [to the nuclear model of family]. Patricia Hill Collins describes the practise of “othermothers” [as] “women who assist bloodmothers by sharing mothering responsibilities,”

This called for some red pen action, the passage continued.. 

Shared child-raising practices contribute to a people’s self-reliance, says Collins: “Black Women’s relationships with children and other vulnerable community members is not intended to dominate or control. Rather it’s purpose is to bring people along, to – in the words of late nineteenth century Black feminists – ‘uplift the race’ – so that vulnerable members of the community will be able to attain the self-reliance and independence essential for resistance.

Jane Juffer, Single Mother -  the Emergence of the Domestic Intellectual.  

Just as I read this and scribbled in the margins the word: “Amazing!”, I got a text from the one most fittingly my (or more precisely, the kids..) “othermother”- the one who has uplifted me and mine and has given me the strength for self-reliance, it takes a skilled practitioner of kindness to nurture and support someone in a way that doesn’t make them feel dependent – but instead stronger and more free, free to be a force of resistance instead of a subject of vulnerability.

The text she sent at this opportune moment was a screenshot from the photoshoot we did this weekend (in the freezing fricking cold I’d like to add, she is both wonderful – and cruel). The brief I gave for the shoot was “I want it moody but not in any way vulnerable.” – None could have captured it so brilliantly than the person who has contributed so much, over many years, to making me feel as strong as I do. 
So here’s a big giant fist bump to the othermothers of the world – most specifically My Rachums*.


*for relentlessly beautiful photos - follow Rachel on Instagram here.