Mothering Alongside a World in Conflict
My body is here
but like so many, my mind and
my love and my fear and my
desperation are in Gaza.
Twenty times a day; more
I find myself tussling with and frustrated by
my own mothering realities. And then the
rolling in of
a now familiar sensation - my heart
dropping through the floor -
feeling this, a tiny sliver of what Mothers
in this same world
are holding and traversing in this moment.
In my on life I’m adjusting to new medication
and struggling with it.
And I find myself thinking about Hind Khoudary -
a journalist in Gaza -
who reports she’s struggling to find access
to an asthma puffer.
It’s been a rough year for me,
I’m on wobbly baby deer legs,
unlearning what feels like
lifelong survival mode.
But what could I ever know about survival mode, really?
I’m past my capacity and it frustrates me that
I don’t have food for dinner…
But duality smacks me in the face because I know
my kids and I
could survive a month
on the abundance we have
right here in our kitchen.
How many don’t?
The split between our experiences -
where do we put that?
I’m dreading bathing the kids -
I don’t have the energy or the capacity
to handle it.
I begin the task and my heart breaks into pieces
tears soak my cheeks in acknowledgement of the abundance
right here - fresh clean water
as soon as I turn the tap.
Every humans right.
And my heart disappears through the floor again
thinking of families
rationing their water intake.
The ripping, unjust lopsidedness of it all.
If I am facing capacity challenges,
what of the weary fatigue
and shattered capacity
Of the remaining Mothers of Gaza.
If what I feel is stretched too thin, what is beyond that?
The hurt and the privilege
and the pain smash up against
each other inside me.
I’m feeling it all and
quite honestly, I don’t even know where it lands me.
It’s the next day, and I’m back - grounded
in the comfort of my contrastingly mundane reality.
I’m annoyed - it’s a beautiful day
and I’m not well enough to enjoy it.
I worry that I’m loosing days
to this weird space of not quite illness
but defiantly disability.
At the same time I feel unfairly and absurdly insulated
by the privilege of knowing that
chances are, for me
New days will come.
How many don’t feel that?
I worry that my kids won’t feel
their single birthday present
is enough
and at the same time I shatter
because so many people
Just want to stay alive. All they wish is
for their people to
keep breathing. Keep beating.
So many people just want to keep their people.
A precious gift they’re being denied
hour upon hour upon hour.
I’m annoyed with my kids
overwhelmed by the noise of them
and desperate for space away.
And I know I can want that space away
because we’re likely to all be alive and well tomorrow.
How closely would I press them up against me if I didn’t have that knowing?
My son cries at the thought of
a Christmas tree being cut down - the idea of
it’s decaying and dying
for our short lived pleasure.
It doesn’t feel right to him.
And as he speaks about the pain it would cause him to witness
that tree
slowly die
my heart runs mental footage
of traumatised,
lost and rubble covered babies and kids
who so deserve for their biggest concern
to be about a single withering tree.
Their beautiful little eyes
just shouldn’t know how to see like that.
Shouldn’t look like that.
Wishing I could somehow reach out and
accomodate those precious little ones
like I can for my own son.
More than wishing. Yearning. Aching.
In the night,
my daughter has a nightmare.
She calls out for me, scared.
‘You’re safe’ I say
because she is
and I wonder what on earth you say
to children who scream in the night
in a war zone.
I go outside, fresh crisp air
darkness
and the beauty of stars. These skies entirely safe.
Entirely peaceful.
For the Mothers of Gaza tho
there is no such safety
and no such reprieve. No moment to recentre.
The reality of their sky is stinging, even from here
and I’d give anything
for my desperation and love -
for our collective desperation and love
to possess the strength to usher them
into comfort and warmth and safety.
From the sturdy safe walls of my house
and the comfort of my head on
this soft pillow
my nervous system rattles
and winces and whirs. Nausea rises again.
Photographs and footage
so horrific
fill my mind and my blood stream.
Everything we see is haunting.
Nothing we do is enough.
This heart break.
Where do we put this?
It spills everywhere.
My body holds back ovulation
and my menstrual cycle is long.
Exactly as it did during the 2020 bushfires.
How many women
across the world
witnessing this
will have their entire body physiology -
as evidenced by their menstrual cycle
impacted
by the terror
of the truth
of what’s happening
on the face of this world
we’re all spinning on?
We are so smugly certain that we are pieced out as individual humans -
separated clearly by a covering of skin
that delineates the ‘me’ from ‘everyone else’
but it’s a lie
and my menstral cycle shows it -
influenced by conflict unfolding
13,757kms away from where I am as I write this.
How many others ache?
How many ways can a body and soul ache?
Heart broken and softening again.
I allow the magnitude of it all.
I allow my emotions their full
intimidating, incredible, overwhelming
powerful and flooring expression.
The guttural, visceral discomfort of it
honoured as sacred. As important work.
And I breathe it in and use it all as fuel
to galvanise me.
Solidify me.
To remind myself that as a collective
so many of us
are drawing into our power -
steely eyed, determined and ready
to use the tools we have
to influence
systems of change
for the rest of our breaths.
To demand a humane world.
I envision all the women who
Won’t Stay Quiet
and Won’t Play Nice anymore.
We’ve felt more than we can feel
and it’s time for reclamation.
Inside our collective despair, I feel a pulsing growing bud
of collective courage and bravery
palpable enough to give me goosebumps.
How many of us have awaked
into taking up more space…
How many of us will step forward and into,
when we previously would have stepped back and away…
How many of us will set our sights on higher positions…
How many of us feel clarified in our purpose…
Ready to stop allowing others to silence us
in order to get on with the monumental and worthy task
of creating greater impact
and carving real change.
We are passionate and creative and resolute.
We are going to use the tools we have to
crush the barriers blocking the existence of
a genuinely humane world.
All I can know
is that I am here.
And I plan to use that gift wholly.
For all people.
And Always.
All I can know
is that as Mothers we are split and aching and torn
just as we have been before.
We know this terrain - this confusing mess.
We are
Cracking Open now
just as we have cracked open before.
It’s all eerily, strangely familiar.
This otherworldly discomfort
echoing something we know too well -
the way we are torn and changed and cracked open
and entirely disoriented by birth and in motherhood.
The way we entirely reimagine ourselves
amongst the messy chaos
and potent terrain of birthing and growing children.
Now we feel that same thing, on monumental scale,
to birth and nurture
a new world.
The depth of what this experience of witnessing
has stirred…
Just as with the birth of our children
I am (we are) forever changed.
Never going to be the same.
It feels like everything is reset. Factory settings and embedded
Good Girl and Perfect Mother stories wiped clean. We start as humans anew.
With fresh eyes and wobbly legs, messy and integrating
and deciding our actions anew.
Just like after the blur of birth and motherhood,
after feeling the fullness of these months
I stand now
as a new evolution of the women I was before.
And my bones know it’s not just me.
Stronger, louder, more tenacious and more determined.
Forever changed. Ready to reimagine
and rebuild through
myself, my motherhood and through every action
I (and we) take from here.
I bow down and marvel
to see
What we grow from here.