This week’s offering from Dispatches from New Motherhood is Jan Bishop’s beautiful poem ON THE LANDING. Jan explores a moment of nighttime stillness, and the feeling of connection as she stands by her window, looking out at the after-dark world around her.
‘I wanted to try to capture a small moment that many mums will relate to,’ says Jan, ‘but in a setting that is unique to me. It's about grabbing a moment of calm in what feels like a crazy whirlwind. I know many mums will have it much harder than me and I'm lucky my baby (now toddler!) usually only wakes a few times a night. I really feel for those mums who are up every hour. But you know what - whether your baby wakes lots or doesn't - you are all heroes. Looking after a tiny human being and loving it with all your heart takes so much energy. It consumes you and changes you and it can be exhausting and overwhelming. We all need a moment to just be still. Being part of Mothership Writers helped me have a space to share those feelings and take the load off and has been an amazingly rewarding experience.’
Here's to finding those moments of stillness wherever you can. And here’s Jan’s wonderfully transporting poem.
***
ON THE LANDING
Jan Bishop
This is the time when the night breathes out,
and lets its stillness speak.
I’m standing at the window between your room and mine,
caught in a sort of sleepy limbo.
While you, full of milk and dreams, lie like a starfish in your cot.
Eyes gently closed, little fingers softly unfurled.
I’ll be back soon, my love, when you call again.
But for now it’s quiet and you sleep.
This is a moment just for me, gazing into the world outside.
02:13 says the glowing blue face of the thermostat.
But my slippered feet know this spot well.
And each time it’s different but the same.
The waxy green leaves of our hedge which needs cutting.
The spindly Christmas tree we still haven’t moved.
The airport bus as it thunders past, its passengers oblivious.
And somehow I don’t mind being awake,
because for a few moments I notice the world.
I’ve seen the 1am taxis and 4am ambulances.
The pelting rain caught in the streetlamps.
The chinks of light from other people’s windows and tellies still on.
The flash of faces on bikes and buses,
looking forward or down or into the dark.
The hiss of tyres and reflected red lights.
All of us working the night shift.
I’ve been back to bed a thousand times over.
Warm sheets, wrinkled pillow, rest.
Then comes the pink and the grey and the blue,
and the morning is almost here.
I rise for your familiar cry and we’re together again.
Your small rosy face and tufty bed hair
and the love-stained bunny clutched to your chest.
And we’re here as one, hot cheek to cheek,
at our spot on the landing.
Making the world our own.
***
On the Landing by Jan Bishop appears in the Mothership Writers anthology Dispatches from New Motherhood. All 50 pieces from the book will be published here over the year to come, creating an online library of what it really means – right here, right now – to be a new mother.