And Then There Were Two

Amongst friends that have had their first child, I find that there is a common question that always surprises me – should we have more? Before I had children I always thought that I would have at least two, maybe three, all things being well. I adore my sister and cannot consider life without her, so why would I want any different for my own children? Then I gave birth to my beautiful daughter and, lo!, life felt complete and why would I want to put myself through that again? And anyway, people with more than one child always seem so … stressy.

I don’t recall growing up with many friends who were only children, but then a rise of one-child families is logical. Most of us are waiting until we are older to have children, and our years of independent living make us stronger, more mature, more selfless, but also more stuck in our ways. First Child Shock Syndrome is made worse by the fact that we have spent fifteen years building up expectations. I hope that I am not the only one who spent at least three weeks crying because I had sore nipples and couldn’t work out how to tie a sling. Many of my friends are in no hurry to have more than one child and maintain some of the order and stability that they spent their twenties building up.

There is also the issue of our bodies and the fact that most of are, though not old by any means, starting to see some signs of degeneration. I am earthy enough to give birth naturally and at home, but not to wax lyrical about how wonderful it was. It is hard and takes its physical toll. The reality is though that time really is a great healer and the pain is overwhelmed by a sense of how worth it it all is, for the process of falling in love with your child is one that blows all others out of the water. The sleeplessness, the aching, the constant lack of time, and then those little hands to your face and skin as soft as air and, bham, you want it again and again - hooked. My daughter is two and I can honestly say that my love for her grows and grows so I find it hard to contain it.

Being a great fan of avoidance, when the time came for me to decide whether to have more children, or not, I just put my head in the sand. I simply didn’t do anything to prevent it and as a result I now also have a perfect son. And yes, it’s true that you really do have the capacity to love another just as much – who knew? Now my moo is nine months old and the echo of ‘never again’ has barely faded from my hallway and I am thinking – maybe one more … why? This mentality is all very understandable when applied to After-Eights, but childbirth?

I have decided that the critical moment that we must all beware of is when your youngest starts sleeping through. I have not forgotten that I never want to give birth again, but I have almost instantly forgotten the torment of sleep-deprivation. There is something in our genetic make-up that causes us to lose all reason when it comes to having children. After all, what would I do with a third? I think that I would become house-bound and slightly mad, yet I am tempted.

There are many things at work here. Can I live without the noddy head/milky smell/neck creases? Can I make a success of my work after two years of vomit and peekaboo? Will my husband still love me if we have conversations again? Will they both move to Timbuktu and leave me to grow old alone? Better have another, just in case.

There is also Jemima. When I was pregnant with my second child I was convinced that he would be a girl, which he wasn’t as you know. I named her Jemima. I am not disappointed and never will be to have my boy, but Jemima still floats around on the edges of my mind – my unwritten song.

The reality is though that I should not be thinking about my own needs at this point, but those of my children and my poor forgotten husband. I don’t mean that to sound pious, but having another child is about all of us. I only have two arms and all the love in the world doesn’t change that. Two children works – two arms, two back seats in the car, two parents, two functioning brain cells – my family is all balanced and harmonious and people still feel able to invite us to their houses. So maybe reason will win out after all and I will stick with the perfect package that I have got. Or, maybe I won’t …

Matter of Loaf and Death?

As I sit and think about this article, I have to wonder, amidst credit crisis, climate change, war and famine, whether writing about baking bread is important. To me it is, because I believe that we must rediscover some of the basic delights of life, maybe now more than ever.
The position of bread within our culture and language is one of comfort and sustainability and the breaking of bread is synonymous with hospitality and friendship. At a recent talk that I attended, Andrew Whitley, founder of Bread Matters, pointed out that the very word ‘companionship’ is based on the Latin sharing of bread. Again and again our language uses bread-baking metaphors to describe wider feelings and issues, with the baked loaf representing completeness. In her poem You’re, Sylvia Plath describes her perfect baby as her ‘high riser’ her ‘little loaf’ – wonderfully emotive phrases full of love and aspiration.
So, we have been sustained by bread for eons to the point that it has gained life-blood status in our very language, yet the industrially-produced bread that we buy in the shops is tasteless, textureless, high in fat and low in nutrition, and over-priced. What has happened?
My mum started baking her own bread when my sister and I were at school. The sight of my mum kneading dough has therefore been an integral part of my upbringing, and I still find it comforting to see her chasing the dough around the table in a vague haze of flour, taking up twenty minutes of her day, every other day, in a simple combination of flour, water and yeast. She does not spend a lot of money or time on this task, yet she adds value to all our lives with her production of fresh bread and it is not unusual for small crowds to gather at coffee time.
It is possible for me to buy half-decent bread locally, I’m lucky to have a local baker. I tried a bread-maker but found it rather soulless. For me, the satisfaction of making bread is largely about the effort and the process. When I can’t make the time to do it properly, I would rather just give it a miss altogether. We shouldn’t have crisis about the shortcuts that we take, I buy bread when I have to and make it when I can. However, listening to Andrew Whitley talking I had to wonder, is bread-making (or the lack of it) representative of a core issue in modern life? When we cease to dedicate some time to fundamental, life-sustaining actions (like making our own bread), do we lose anything? Do we gain anything by taking the shortcut? Buying the bread or, for example, writing an email rather than a letter?
There is a danger, with many actions, that with the loss of time spent, we lose the heart of the action. Emails are great, but when we use them to say sorry or thank you or I love you, then maybe we are in trouble. Many acts are enriched by the spaces between, the moments to think about what we are doing. If bread is a metaphor for life, time spent is of vital importance. The making of good bread is reliant on a chemical reaction between the different ingredients as it rises, creating natural enzymes and making it nutritious and tasty. If you don’t spend the time, you end up eating a brick – make of that what you will.
There is also a wider issue with time. An email might be quicker but expectations on our productivity have gone up. We write messages quicker, but have to write many more messages in any given time. We fill up the ether with more of the same and we gain nothing. Our messages lose gravitas and meaning because they are pounded out without proper thought or consideration, ten to the dozen, and we have as little time as before to stop and stare. We have lost the time when we would have chosen paper, filled our pen, walked to the post box … when, oh when, do we ponder? If buying bread gives you free time to read a good book or go for a walk in the rain, great, but does it?
My point is that there are moments in all our lives when a takeaway, a supermarket loaf or an email is the right solution and has a place in our lives. But when we cease to question this place and realize that we have not written a letter for years or ever made a curry from scratch, then what are we losing as a result? When I spend twenty minutes getting into a car, driving to the shops and parking for a loaf of bread, I have to consider whether I would have been better off making my own.
But it’s not just about time, it’s also about connection. Connection to the things we do. Andrew Whitley says that in the case of making bread, machines can knead dough more effectively than we can with our hands, and of course it is quicker and easier so, why not? The reason, he says, is our connection to the bread.

”In using your body’s energy to mix and work the dough, you are literally giving of yourself, and a loaf made like this contains and therefore expresses you in a way that cannot be said of ingredients transformed – however conveniently – by the ingenuity of distant engineers and technologists.” (Bread Matters, Andrew Whitely)

When did we lose this emotional connection with our food, I wonder, and how much does this reflect a deeper emotional disconnect in our society? I can pass a whole day rushing around without connecting with anyone beyond my immediate family (and sometimes not even them) and when this happens I am efficient in my use of time, but I am alone. I have lost my place and my purpose. It is so easy to make my day with a smile or a helping hand – but I cannot expect this kind of consideration if I cannot spare the time to give it to others.
I think that we need to make (and feel) a connection again and again, and not just with our food – with our lives. Making bread is therapeutic because it is physical and constructive. In a very immediate sense, we can achieve something good – knead it, bake it, eat it. Like freshly mown grass and the milky smell of a newborn, the smell of freshly baked bread transports us to a better, warmer, richer place. With little money, effort or time, we can have a positive impact on our immediate environment. Home-baked bread represents sustenance, both emotional and physical.
When we find ourselves without the time to plant and strum and soak and write and knead, we lose our connection with our own capabilities at the most fundamental level. We can run to achieve great things and yet forget that it is by doing small things well, that one can become, and feel, great.

Thoughts on Leadership

A snippet from my mum's latest article:

We are a resourceful species and we must now more than ever use our richly diverse cultural and intellectual resources to the full whilst nurturing and sustaining them. Exploitation of these resources results in intellectual and cultural conflict or deadening sameness and desertification, much as it does in the natural environment.
[Mary Lidgate, Theatre4Business, Nov '08]

Emotional Journey #2

When was the last time you had a good dance? My most positive and lovely friends Fraser and Katy like to dance and I don't think that I do it enough, any more. We have to drum up the energy from somewhere!

Emotional Journey #1

Quick art using Amelie's felt-tips! I use these drawings to get my head from domesticity to creativity, which is not always easy. This and the next one are inspired by my mum's article for Theatre4business on leadership, so I have called them Generating Change. Very grand, but just some fun!

SeaSky: Part 4

Then they hit on the very thing
(As Murgles love to dance and sing)
A spangled stage the Murglets set,
And all their parents happy met.

"I have a story great to tell
So listen good, O listen well ..."

"Within the ground filled with their stinking grime,
Their water flowed and was poisoned with slime ..."

"Vast and sick it gurgling sighs
And grumbling coils 'neath liquid skies ..."

"Silent, waiting growing fat,
Dangerous as a plaguey rat ..."

"Gobbling up with wrathful glee,
A silent, surging, invisible sea!"

And as a the curtain finally fell
Their came a hushed and heavy still,
When breath and air were tightly held,
Then with a sudden RUSH expelled.

It picked them up in cold embrace
They felt its breath on every face,
The snag of claws upon the clothes
A monstrous wrath before them rose
Its poisoned lolling tongue uncurled,
Great fists of dust it tossed and hurled.

Slowly, puffy, the tempest calmed
To gently stroke where it had harmed,
And in that moment Murgles saw
The yellowed eyes, the slackened jaw,
And recognised this whispish beast
That stroked their hair and pricked their skin
That they breathed out and then breathed in.
That cooled them when the sun was hot,
And fanned their fires when it was not.
That carried scent of flowers and honey,
That brought the rain,
That watered the crops,
That made them life, and joy ... and money.

So do you think the Murgles did
What they had been so strongly bid?
Do you think that they were able
To save the whispish air,
And save the deep, brown bog,
And save the earth that puts food on their table?

The End

SeaSky: Part 3

And whilst this poision spread below
Another threat began to grow ...

To fuel their light, machines and heat
That kept them safe and snug and neat,
Murgles melted rocks as black as granite
That littered their beautiful little planet.
With wondrous ease they picked them up,
Chucked them into the melting cup,
Where rocks to fiery liquid run,
Bright and hot as the distant sun.

But in these magicky lifesome stones
There lived a gas that made its home
Within the chambers of this hard stuff,
'Till released by melting in a tiny puff
It phantom-like leaves its dark lair,
To hide within the whispy air.

For years and years it floated so,
Not seen or heard it steadily grew.
Silent, waiting, growing fat,
dangerous as a plaguey rat.

By instinct the Truffles were steadily led
And found the Murgles all abed,
Protected from the cool, dark night
Their homes all glowed with heat and light,
Whilst gases crept across the floors
And round their snuffling noses paused,
Then silent snuck out, out, OUT round windows and doors.
Sucking, furling it gathered there
Filling, swelling, bloating the air.
It built and rose, wave upon wave,
Smothering life that once it gave,
Gobbling up with wrathful glee,
A silent, surging, invisible sea.

This the tiny Truffles saw.
They felt the tug and heard the roar.
Knew that whilst Murgles lay abed,
This wave would crash upon their heads.
So round the houses gathered they
Outside the windows where Murgles lay,
And through the boiling, angry sky
They started up a warning cry.

In one such house all snug and curled
There lay a little Murgle girl,
Who heard the Truffles as they cried
And yawning rose to look outside.

Face to face she came with one,
Eyes ablaze in the rising sun.

Reflected in those luminous eyes
She saw the smoky, strangled skies
All across the houses and bog
She saw this choking, evil smog.
Faded colour and faded light
O it made a sorrisome sight!

In the morning bright and fair
She told her friends of the suffering air.
She told them as they gathered round her,
Of a sky so full it nearly drowned her.

The children talked and pondered long,
On the things that they were doing wrong.
What could they boys and girls arrange
To turn the tide ...
And stop the rot ...
And steer upon a sea of change?