January: The month that brought me my sons + becoming “mom”
“You break and enter my imagination
Whatever’s in there is your to take.”
- Bono
On two consecutive days this month we get to celebrate both of my boys entering the world. On both of those days, 9 and 7 years ago, I changed. Those two events precipitated my life and perspective and physical body being forever bent toward the well being of two humans that I am infinitely glad I get to know. These two January days are absolutely a celebration of two brilliant boys and the progress they make in their lives. But quietly, to myself (except now apparently on a blog post for any stranger to read) I think about how I became a mother on these two days - first to one boy and then to another. And it ripped me apart; first my body and then my consciousness. It brought me to the end of myself, which feels extremely cliché to write. Because that is what everyone says. But nothing else in my existence has taught me as much as motherhood has.
One thing about becoming a parent is that it demands you to rise to the occasion. It asks you to ascend before you know what that means. Yeah, I read books. Yeah, I bought all the baby shit — clothes, diapers, wipes, a crib, a baby tub, a breast pump, a nursing pillow… I had the tools. But when those babies looked up at me, screaming in the middle of the night (wah, wah, wah, wah - I can still hear it echoing in my head) because what if they hadn’t had enough milk or what if their diaper was dirty again or what if they were cold or what if they were overstimulated or what if I just wasn’t enough — I reached the end of my resources so quickly but no one else was going to show up and do what I had to do for that screaming child. And so I ascended. In the dim blue light of many early mornings, I kept rising to the occasion. My anxious, strung out, overtired brain had to keep rising to the occasion for these tiny strangers who only spoke to me with coos and cries.
I watched Nightbitch recently and at one point Amy Adams’ character asks a group of mothers at library story time, “What if we are gods?” Birthing parents create beings within themselves. We multiply. And though I am largely uncomfortable with assigning myself that level of worth and value, I much prefer to see us in a light like that. It’s much better than the condescension that has seemed to be paired with the term “mother” as if keeping the human race going is a lesser task than participating in the workforce. But I feel nothing like a god. I am tired. A cloud forever lives in my brain. I feel like I could stay up forever and still not do everything for my children that they deserve their mother to do for them. I would like to always give them more like a good god would. I’d like to be the best god for them. But that’s where the comparison breaks down. I am limited and I make mistakes and I cannot know their thoughts unless they speak them to me.
It’s no wonder my experience of motherhood is a massive part of my art practice. I can’t stop drawing and painting these children. In the least cliché way, they are my world. Not because I need them to please me or fulfill me, but because I must spend every waking, and sometimes sleeping, moment considering them and their needs. And that makes me different. It attaches me. I will not know a truly carefree moment again. The individual and the mother that are both sides of me are everyday warring. I am restrained. And I cannot stop thinking about the meaning of this. I cannot stop thinking of the value of this. And I’m going to keep working it out on canvases until I understand more of who I’ve become in relation to the beings my body created.
