DISPATCHES FROM NEW MOTHERHOOD

This week we're celebrating the publication of the first ever Mothership Writers anthology, Dispatches from New Motherhood. I truly believe this book is a revelation. It gathers together the voices of 50 new mothers, all writing in the maelstrom of experience: these aren't narratives crafted at a distance, they've been set down with a pen in one hand and a baby in the other – often literally. And they’re evidence of the richly rewarding relationship between creativity and maternity.

Before Mothership Writers, many of the women in our crew hadn't written for years; 'I used to enjoy writing at school but I lost the habit' was a frequently recurring sentiment at the start of the course. There's something about giving birth - perhaps the most creative act of all - that awakens a desire to express oneself; the sense, in those early weeks and months of motherhood, that something remarkable is being experienced – an intensity of feeling that demands capture. Mothership Writers gives women the space, and the confidence, to do just that. 

While the book itself is super limited edition, over the year to come each piece will be posted to this Journal on a weekly basis, so that as wide an audience as possible can connect with our writers and their work: an online library of what it really means to be a new mother. From the end of May a fortnightly Mothership newsletter will celebrate the pieces too – while bringing extra creative inspiration and writing tips. I hope that lots of women will find the emotions articulated in Dispatches from New Motherhood liberating, for our writers don't shy from documenting the complexities of their experience – they speak of the darkness as well as the light. In their company we're taken into the most intimate and varied of spaces: a consultation with a mental health nurse, a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, a showgirl's dressing room, a spot on the landing in the middle of the night, the moment when a mother throws her placenta into the sea. There are 50 pieces of prose and poetry in Dispatches from New Motherhood and every single one has something important to say about the diverse experience of mothering.

In Thicker than Blood, Abi Lancaster offers a poignant reflection on her role as a foster mother:

'I walk your neighbourhood. Your baby hearing the noises and smelling the scents of her time in your womb. I play a game of would-I-rather: would I rather bump into you in the street, or at the courtroom?' 

In The Pendulum, Asli Tatliadim shares with us the rhythms of bedtime and explores the contradictions of her emotions:

'As I wait for you to fall asleep, the pendulum swings between the extremities of my motherhood. Your infinite need of me defines both ends. I feel suffocated and satisfied. I feel pained and peaceful. I feel alone and alive.'

In her poem Darkness and Light, Jenny Fisken writes of the natural world and its connection to her state of mind: 

'Sea-salted skin from the vastness of oceans
Provokes anxiety to rise all the more readily in my body,
Like the electric feel of the air before a storm.'

In Alarm Bells Sound, T. Wills documents the challenges and uncertainties of undergoing IVF on her own:

'I'm a single parent who is, to be frank, lost on the planet, anchorless, lonely as an anchorite and yearning for something to pour foundations into; a grown-up person to be building something with, a house to call home or a nation where I am sure I belong.'

In her poem When I Gave Birth, Imogen Schäfer offers a heart-wrenching account of her daughter’s birth:

'How can I have given birth to someone
when I was barely alive?
Heart in shutdown,
lungs collapsing.
Hurried talk of hysterectomy
and how to save my life
while all I could do was lie bleeding
and wonder,
where has it gone wrong?'

In Sweet Serafael, Sarafina Finch writes of navigating single motherhood and drawing inspiration from her son:

’A space in the bed once saved for your father
Has now become the space saved for you,
Sweet Serafael.'

In Flowers, Hannah Simpson affectingly describes a visit from a perinatal mental health nurse:

'I've been Googling hostels, in Bristol and further afield. Wondering if I could turn up somewhere and not be me anymore. Considering which doorsteps I could arrive on. A lone stork, empty handed.'

In Anxious, Overwhelmed, Lonely and Lost, Kimberley Dean writes of the struggle of completing her piece for the anthology – and her eventual triumph:

'I've lost all my confidence. Since having Ralph, this has become my new normal. No longer knowing who I am or even who I used to be. But I get the words down anyway. Because if becoming a mother has taught me anything, it's that I do deserve to be heard.'

I couldn't be more proud of the book we’ve made – or more proud of the women inside its pages. I hope that many new mothers will find the work of the Mothership Writers inspiring and feel empowered to 'get the words down', as Kimberley Dean says. Get the words down and be heard.

OUR BOOK!

Drum roll! I’m thrilled to share the cover of the first ever Mothership Writers anthology: Dispatches from New Motherhood. Designed by super talented Mothership artist Esther Curtis, it perfectly captures what we’re all about.

And here’s what it says on the back cover …

In the spring of 2019 Mothership Writers was born, a groundbreaking creative writing programme for new mothers in Bristol. Over the next 12 months, three groups of women – and their babies – met for fortnightly workshops, led by novelist Emylia Hall. Many hadn't written for years. Every single one had a story to tell.

Dispatches from New Motherhood is an extraordinary collection of prose and poetry from the first ever band of Mothership Writers. This is writing done in stolen time, in the margins of the day and night, and each piece shines with honesty and immediacy; from a powerful account of postnatal depression to the soul-lifting effects of a bike ride, from a moving story of months spent in NICU, to feeling lost in suburbia. This anthology offers a tender, hopeful, unflinching documentation of what it means – right here, right now – to be a new mother. 

While printed copies are primarily intended as a keepsake for our writers, we’ll be publishing every piece from the book here on our Journal from the middle of May and throughout the year to come. I can’t wait to share the incredible work of our writers with you. And I couldn’t be prouder of this book – or the very many women who’ve made it happen.

FREEWRITING JUKEBOX

When you’ve a roomful of babies, perhaps the only predictable thing is an element of unpredictability. Last week at Mothership we stopped in the middle of a poetry reading to watch one tot climb aboard another and then proceed to ride down the centre of the room: the poem never stood a chance amidst the laughter. But we’ve become deft at switching our attention, at refocusing (Mothership Writers: Never Not Juggling), and for all the unexpected happenings, our workshops do follow a set structure. While the first half of the sessions are focused on an element of the craft of writing, in the second half we specifically explore motherhood. And we always start off our motherhood writing with an exercise that we’ve come to call the Freewriting Jukebox.

Some years ago I had a short story published in a collection called Too Much Too Young; the anthology was the work of the ‘literary club night’ Book Slam, a place where literature and music have always shared a stage. The brief was to write a story inspired by a song title; a challenge that was inspiring, fun and succeeded in bringing clarification to the creative process; by focusing my thoughts on one track, I found that my ideas possessed an instant solidity and confidence. I loved writing that story – titled Me and Bobby McGee, it went on to be broadcast on Jarvis Cocker’s BBC 6 Music show: a career highlight, for sure. The experience of writing to music (the title at least, if not the tune) has stayed with me – and as a result the Mothership Writers Freewriting Jukebox was born.

Illustration by Esther Curtis

In our fourth workshop, all the way back in May, I asked the groups to offer up some song titles, and then we each selected one to use as a starting point for a piece of freewriting on the subject of motherhood. The topic of that workshop was ‘ideas and where they come from’, and song titles proved to be a rich seam of inspiration. In the fifth session I ran the exercise again, this time bringing some titles to the table: Born Slippy (Underworld), Teardrop (Massive Attack) and Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bonnie Tyler). Again, the groups could write about any aspect of motherhood – whether personal or fictionalised – and I was amazed at the directions that people went in. By the seventh session the name Freewriting Jukebox was coined, and the exercise had become a permanent fixture. Convinced of the agility and fluidity of the groups’ thought processes, the Jukebox has become yet more random. Instead of picking particularly emotive titles, I let the gods of radio show us the way. When planning workshops I zip online and tune into BBC 6 Music, then Radio 1, then Radio 2, I go to ‘now playing’ and, without hesitation or rumination, I note the track; in any given week we might be writing to tunes from The Corrs to The Kinks, from DJ Shadow to Skepta to Super Furry Animals. Whether people know the song or not doesn’t matter, all we need is the title; and it doesn’t seem to matter what the title is either. As you can see from the work below, people end up in some extraordinary places. And the babies? Oh they’re always along for the ride, of course. Figuratively, and – like the aforementioned comedy duo – sometimes literally.

Thanks to all the writers for letting me feature their writing here. All of the below pieces were written in the sessions and are unedited. And what’s our soundtrack for every exercise always? Babies, of course.

The Way (Rosie Lowe)

This is The Way to hold him,
That way is wrong.
This is The Way to latch him,
That way is wrong.
This is The Way to change a nappy,
Haven't you done it before?
This is The Way to dress him,
You'll be better when you've done it more.
This is The Way to make him sleep,
This is The Way to play,
These are the hours you should aim to keep,
You really should do it This Way.
The books write, the bloggers type, the experts
They all say.
But my boy and me, 
On our little path,
We're forging our own way.

Lisa Griffiths

Extraordinary Being (Emelie Sandé).

How did you, my little one, come to be?
Those eyes that mirror mine
That smile that mimics mine
Those solid legs and chunky thighs
Your sturdy and self-contained self
You were in me and now we are apart
Did I make you or did you make yourself?
You are an extraordinary being
So familiar and so fresh
I have never loved like this
Studied every aspect, every angle
Watched every moment
Reflected on every motion
Exhausted myself in discovering you
I will never learn everything about you
But I will always be willing

Maria Hodson

 
Tired of Waiting for You (The Kinks)

So tired, tired of waiting for you... to go to sleep.
You are tired my baby boy, you keep telling me so with your cry, every moment longer that it goes on it feels like an eternity, I doubt myself. I wonder if I am offering you the correct thing you need, do you need more milk instead? A nappy change? Medicine? Play time? 
Surely not the last, you were rubbing your eyes and doing your classic start/stop cry that it's taken me months to decipher. 
You are a cryptic crossword my friend, my rebel fighter, my son, my constant companion. 
I drift off in my mind whilst shhh-ing and swaying you. Side-to-side, side-to-side, I need to eat, pee, drink water, sleep all at once. If you give me half an hour, maybe I can do some of those things.
Someone starts banging around in the street below, I sneer at the window.
I must relax, where is my special place again? A beach, my walled garden, I must find a somewhere for my mind to go, a meditation. 
I look down at the cute, little cherub in my arms, sleeping soundly, growing heavy in my arms.

Rachel Dickens

Outnumbered - aka "Too Many, Man" (Dermot Kennedy)

Attached to me
Baby passed to dad
Another clambers on
both kids in bed
and then YOU need a hug
When's my body just for me?

Skin itches and crawls as each of you touch me. 
"ask me before you climb on my lap!" 
I snap
"Can you give me some space to lie by myself first?"
I spurt

but
Somehow I must ooze this cuddle-ness. as however much i push away, you keep coming. 
you all need
touch. 

I can hear the grime anthem ringing
Too many man too many many man
we need some more mums in here
we need some more mums in here

I need 
touch 

Last night when I was crying on the bathroom floor, you hugged me from behind. I needed that. 

A few weeks ago, when I was crying on the stairs, our little boy hugged me without asking why I was crying. I needed that. 

I see it now. 

Touch is given, not taken. 

Abi Lancaster

Teardrop (Massive Attack)

It’s a happy tear. That moment, when you realise that your life has changed forever. This little person is not going away. They are completely your responsibility and you will now respond to their every need. It is also, perhaps, a slight grieving tear, for the life you have so dramatically left behind. That for which you worked so hard. Just one tear, as you share that moment with your child; a moment of complete peace, where you are tangled up together, never to be alone again. And then, it is over. Only room for one teardrop. Now the nappy needs changing.

Liz Smith

Simmer (Mahalia – featuring Burna Boy)

(To B)

You are a little pot of love simmering away.
Your emotions are the twisted pasta strands bubbling and jumping and tangling in the pan.
It's hard for you being three, and sometimes the pan boils over. Do I turn you down? 
No. 
I don't want to deaden your precious emotions. I don't want to put a lid on you.
I want you to simmer and boil and spurt hot fiery water all over the stove that is my heart, scarring me forever with your three year old love.
It's painful but I wouldn't change it for the world.
Like the tattoos you draw on your delicate forearms with your pink and purple sparkly marker pens - your emotions, thoughts and outburst mark me and make me who I am.
So simmer away and don't be afraid to boil over.

Jan Bishop

And now for some bonus tracks…

Major Lazer’s Lean On: one of our writers wrote of the pressure she feels with everyone leaning on her: her son, her partner, her family. How everyone expects her to be the font of all knowledge when it comes to her baby but she doesn’t feel like she is. She wants someone to lean on, but who’s there for her?

Starship’s We Built This City: one writer’s thoughts turned straight away to her older son’s Lego obsession, and the brick building they do together.

 Phil Collins’ Against All Odds: one of our writers wrote of her mother, a brave woman who’d suffered six miscarriages, before eventually conceiving while living in Iran – and while using birth control. Then her baby (our writer) was born, weighing just two pounds…

Sheryl Crow’s Prove You Wrong: one writer wrote of how an appointment with a foot doctor proved to be an unexpected place of reflection and resolution. ‘Whose voice tells you you’re not being a good enough mother?’ the podiatrist asked, while scraping dead skin. Our writer thinks on this, and while not quite coming to answer, is determined to prove that voice wrong. She feels a weight lifting.

The Isley Brothers’ Summer Breeze: one writer wrote of how motherhood can make her sweat and wilt, but then her baby’s smile comes along like a summer breeze, refreshing and restoring.

Thanks to Kimberly, Liz and Maria for the above contributions – and to all the Mothership Writers for your continued enthusiasm, dedication, honesty and warmth. Let’s always keep that jukebox playing!

WHAT WE'VE BEEN UP TO

We’re now ten (well, thirty) workshops into the Mothership programme, and I continue to be amazed by the writing coming out of these sessions. Here’s a selection for you to enjoy – unedited, straight from the page of the notebook – along with some background on the work or exercise that inspired the piece. THANK YOU to Sarafina, Beth, Rebecca, Sara, Eleanor, and Emily for letting me share your brilliant work here. And remember, readers, these pieces were all written with a baby close to hand: balanced on knees, or hoisted on shoulders, or sleeping in a sling, or playing around ankles, or … any other contortion now so familiar to our Mothership Writers.

Often we look at pieces of prose or poetry in our sessions and then use them as starting points for work of our own. In our fourth workshop we read Helen Dunmore’s Patrick, I (from The Picador Book of Birth Poems, edited by Kate Clanchy, 2015), a poem that shows us a new mother standing in her kitchen cooking breakfast on just another “obstinate, exhausted” morning. I asked the group to think about what their mornings were like now. Dunmore writes “mornings are as plain as the pages/Of books in sedentary schooldays” and so we … filled them! Sarafina wrote a poem to her boy Serafael …

Sweet Serafael

In the twilight zone between awake and asleep we exist, Me and You … You and I. 
A space in the bed once saved for your Father 
has now become the space saved for you, 
sweet Serafael. 

Awake, I nourish you with everything I have. 
I am yours entirely. 
Asleep, I protect you and keep you warm. 
Mornings are filled with the purest love, 
sweet Serafael. 

Thank you for bringing the mornings to me, 
for opening my eyes to the wisdom of the sunrise. 
Each day brand new. 
Your endless possibilities wipe away the troubles of the previous day,
sweet Serafael.

Sarafina Finch

In our sixth workshop we read Esther Morgan’s poem Winter (from Writing Motherhood, Seren Books, 2012). I asked the group to take the first line, “Sometimes when you’re not with me” and free-write on from that point. Beth wrote of going out without her baby …

Sometimes when you are not with me

Sometimes when you are not with me, I can feel happy. I can meander through crowds, or wait in queues, and no one looks at me. Well meaning old ladies don’t try to start up conversations with me on buses that awkwardly fizzle out and end up with me smiling at you because I have nowhere else to look. I appear anonymous, uninteresting and ordinary. No one thinks or cares about my bedtime routine or what I feed myself or the fact that sometimes I go to the bathroom and cry.  When you are not with me people do not know I am a mother. They cannot tell just by looking at me that I have silvery trails of stretch marks slithering over my wrinkly belly or that my breasts are swollen with milk. The tired bags under my eyes could be attributed to a night out on the town, or staying up late talking to a lover in Singapore - they could mean something boring and run of the mill. I have both my hands for myself and I can rest them on my lap, or fiddle with my hair as my mind wanders back to a memory and settles in its warm familiarity. If I close my eyes I can hear nothing but the steady flow of water ambling through a small field. It’s warm and I can feel the suns rays on my face and the sweet smell of ripened fruit that has fallen from the tree nearby. When you are not with me, and I am not surrounded by coloured wood and plastic, I can travel back to my memories and sink in to their comforting embrace. It is, however, so easy to look behind and long for the time without you back. Things are so different now. However, when I am with you, I am reminded of how halved I felt, like a cut apple, before you arrived. My world is so much more enjoyable now I look through my eyes as a mother. I pour my overflowing cup of love into your belly, filling you to the brim with all things good and beautiful.You are so good and beautiful. I am grateful, unendingly, to the universe for dropping you in to my life. I will always hold your hand and be your friend, my girl.

Beth Talbot 

In our eighth workshop we discussed the use of unusual narrators in fiction. We read Craig Raine’s poem A Martian Sends a Postcard Home and talked about Tibor Fischer’s ceramic bowl in The Collector Collector. The group then wrote their own pieces from the perspective of a non-human narrator. Rebecca chose a mobile phone …

Mobile Love

I love our relationship, you know. It’s really special, this connection Rob and I have. We’re inseparable – of course! We go everywhere together. I know all his friends, we chat all the time. It’s nice, you know. There are no secrets between us. I know how, when his mind drifts and he isn’t really concentrating, he opens a browser and googles his own name. I know, since Stu was diagnosed with prostrate cancer, he’s been looking up symptoms, whenever he feels anxious. It’s a habit really.

He never tells me, but I know he loves me. He can’t help touching me, all the time, stroking my face. Even at night when we lay together, even in his sleep, his hand twitches, reaches out to check I’m there. I’m his light in dark places, and oh goodness, Rob is just awful at finding new places! But, you know, he’s not like most men, he’s got no qualms about letting me lead the way, give him directions. And, well, I love being useful to him. I just wanna make his life better, you know? Well, our life better.

He totally gets my need for downtime too though – I mean, obviously most of the time I am ‘on’, I’m fully charged and ready to go. But sometimes, when we’ve spent days and nights together, endlessly looking at each other, hanging out with friends, taking photos, reading the news, sometimes, I just, well, I just shut down, you know. It’s all wonderful but sometimes, it’s just too much, too much to process I guess.

At that point, Rob is so quick to hook me up to my charger and let me luxuriate in the flow of electricity coursing through me, reviving me. It’s a real moment of self-care for me and I love that he honours my need for it.

Rebecca Megson

In our tenth workshop we read Jamila Wood’s poem Blk Girl Art (from The Breakbeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip Hop, Haymarket Books, 2015). It’s a brilliant manifesto to creativity, and the roles that Woods wants for the words in her life. I asked the group to think about their own relationship with words, and what they desire and need from their writing. Sara wrote of the struggle …

Words

When I write,
My words curdle
In my stomach, sometimes, and
Flow out of my mouth
Like vomit and bile.
They stick to the page in strange shapes that I hadn’t imagined.
They stink, especially when
Left
To fester,
Turning green and black with rage.

Other times,
My words come out of my eyes.
Visions to be seen, but not spoken of.

I would rather that
My words
Came from my fingers.
Crafted and moulded into submission.

Sara Turner

In our tenth workshop we also drew inspiration from Toni Morrison – not just her incredible legacy of books, but her attitude to motherhood. We talked about how she was a single working mother, getting up at 4am to write; we then talked about how understanding what we want from our writing helps us decide on how much space to give it in our lives. I then read the group an extended quote from Morrison (from Toni Morrison and Motherhood: a Politics of the Heart, by Andrea O’Reilly, State University of New York Press, 2004) which begins with the lines “There was something so valuable that happened when one became a mother. For me it was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me” and goes on “If you listen to (your children), somehow you are able to free yourself from baggage and vanity and all sorts of things, and deliver a better self, one that you like.” I asked the group to write a piece springing from ideas of reinvention and transformation. Eleanor wrote of stitches …

The First Stitch

The first stitch dissolving cat gut in my perineum, bringing neatly cut flesh back to itself.

The second stitch air into broken nipple, skin smoothed with lanolin. I imagine farming ancestors’ cabbage leaves.

The third stitch tears collected in leaking cloth as a needle unseen pierces your spine.

The seventy sixth stitch screams swallowed in the kitchen while you rage above.

The four hundredth stitch, uterus to uterus, skin to skin, hands around my throat as I go to sleep to save choking on my own vomit.

Today, a thousand stitches and yet only a small corner. Apology notes and love notes and screaming wailing sobbing notes and small excavations of my flesh slipped behind fabric and covered with polka dots or Laura Ashley florals or Christmas hats.

A thousand and one stitches, saliva on grazed knees, baby wipes on beetroot stains.

Eleanor Shaw

As you can see, our Mothership sessions are productive, industrious, varied affairs. Yes we’re chilled, yes the babies do their thing too, but many words are written. I think it’s incredible that every fortnight fifty-eight (yes, we’re now fifty-eight! All with babies under one) mothers turn out, babes in tow, and sit down and write. There’s no pressure to write between the workshops, but I always set extra exercises in case people do find the time. Emily shared something she’d written spontaneously, while at home …

It feels like yesterday

It feels like yesterday that I was still pregnant, my body hostage, my belly swollen, my mind torn between excitement and petrified. Now I have this small human being in my arms, and people keeping asking how she’s doing, telling me I’m doing well. I nod and smile and repeat something I’ve just heard in order to seem responsive and like I know what I’m doing. I’m never alone, sometimes so much so I can’t breath, but when I am I feel empty and find myself craving the warm body of my baby. I occasionally feel like I’m having an out of body experience, watching myself from a bubble, I discover that I’m crying and I don’t remember why or when it started. I almost feel the hormones raging through me like I can feel the rushing of the milk to my breasts. I am at the mercy of my own body and of this everlasting moment. I blink and suddenly I have a wide eyed child sitting on the floor looking at me and trying to pull herself up on my legs. Was that really six months? My memories are there if I reach for them, but they don’t feel like my own. She seems happy, you could say she’s thriving, and that’s the goal. I’m aware of myself breathing, I have thoughts which are my own, if a little jumbled sometimes due to sleep deprivation. I occasionally find peace in a moment, the warmth of the sun on my face, a kiss from my husband, a sip of wine with a home cooked meal, I’m doing ok. To be continued.

Emily Way-Evans

And as Emily says, to be continued …

OUR FIRST WORDS

In the first entry in this journal, posted before the Mothership workshops began, I said that the intention was to share some work here from time to time – ‘jottings from our sessions, the ink still wet.’ I remember hesitating before I wrote those words, wondering if I was committing to something I wasn’t sure we could deliver on; while I always believed that the Mothership sessions had the ability to inspire, to serve as nourishing and creative spaces, could meaningful work be produced actually there in the room? Could people concentrate enough, against the baby soundtrack, to tap into a feeling and set it down on paper in a timed exercise – writing from the hip, with a child on the other? The answer is a resounding YES.

Today I’m both happy and proud to be sharing three pieces from our Mothership workshops. One was produced while the mum was up on her feet, her baby fully-awake in a front-facing sling, her notebook stretched out before her – writing into air. By hook or by crook! What was it that Cyril Connolly said, ‘there is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall’? Whatevs, Cyril.

The work here is inspired by Julia Darling’s beautiful poem Advice For My Daughters, which was originally published in Indelible, Miraculous (ARC, 2015) and also appears in the fantastic anthology Writing Motherhood, edited by Carolyn Jess-Cooke (Seren, 2017). Last week we read Advice For My Daughters, then, in a short timed exercise, the group wrote their own pieces of advice. Here we have advice for a daughter, advice for a son, and, lastly, advice from a son to his mother. All three of these pieces were read aloud in the sessions – to tears, to applause. Big thanks to Mothership Writers Eleanor, Helena, and Maria for the permission. And thank you, wonderful and wise Julia Darling, for the inspiration.

I have no advice for you. 
I can help you with pensions, and with your hair. 
I will save and save and save 
My money, and my time, and every last ounce of my body,
for you. 
But.
This world is a swirling vortex 
and I cannot tell you whether to root yourself deep, bracing against the wind,
Or to take the deepest breath, and
Throw yourself over the edge. 
I will tell you that I am weak and your father is split down the middle but our love is
unending. 
May it fill you up, every crevice and every star. 
I cannot make you happy, or strong. 
But. 
I have given you life. 
My advice? 
    Live.

Eleanor Shaw

Be kind, and know you are loved.
Of all the things I could teach you, know this:
Be kind, and know you are loved.
People will challenge and change and delight you
So be kind, and know you are loved.
Places to go can be fun, dull or scary
So be kind, and know you are loved.
We will not always know what to do, or to say
So be kind, and know you are loved. 

Helena Hoyle

Be calm, Mum
Everything is fine
You can relax

I am here - and I am happy

All I need is for you to love me
And you do that well

I am fat and simple
And it is good
The world is still a place of presents and immediates
Of here and nows
This is real life
Will you join me?

Be happy and be here, Mum
That is all I want
That and nothing more

Maria Hodson

WE HAVE LIFT-OFF!

The response to Mothership Writers has been astonishing. Within twenty-four hours of launch, the first forty places had been snapped up; despite stopping all promotion we now have a waiting list that’s one hundred-strong. It feels like our writing workshops – the sense of community that’s built around creative endeavour – have tapped into something that new mothers want and need.

In mid-April, the programme of workshops began at St Werburghs Community Centre and Windmill Hill City Farm, here in Bristol. I’d prepared material for the first session but as I walked across the city to St Werburghs, my backpack stuffed with handouts and box-fresh blankets and cushions, I had no real idea how it would go. Teaching creative writing with a room full of babies? Was it crazy?    

We had eighteen mothers and seventeen babies in that first session. There were babies in slings, in arms, on boobs, in buggies, crawling, and meanwhile the Mothership Writers… wrote. They wrote and wrote. The workshop ran to time. We covered all the exercises. We talked meaningfully about building confidence in creativity, the joy of free-writing, the unexpected places our writing could take us. At one point I looked around the room, sunlight streaming in, heads bent in concentration and couldn’t believe how QUIET it was: how was that possible, with so many little ones along for the ride?

Now six sessions have taken place, and it’s clear that the first wasn’t a fluke: creative writing workshops and babies DO mix. Yes, it’s loud sometimes. But not half as loud as you’d think. And anyway, loud is fine. The pervading air is that of calm; we’re a creative space – industrious but informal, a place of encouragement not judgement, no stress. Maybe the babies pick up on the good vibes because every so often when hush falls, and all you can hear is the odd gurgle, the scratch of pens, it feels near enough transcendental.

Over the year-long programme we’ll be focusing on the principles of creative writing, exploring the experience of new motherhood, and working towards pieces to be collected into the first Mothership anthology. Already our crew are up for sharing their work, writing freely and powerfully - many haven’t written creatively since school, others practice journalling or write for therapeutic purposes, we have a poet, a novelist – altogether, I’ve been amazed. I ended one session in tears, moved by a writer’s honesty and eloquence. In another, I taught with a five-week old snuggled in my neck. We’re blessed with an awesome trio of volunteers, writer-mothers Rosie, Meg and Jen, who generously offer their time each fortnight. Our youngest attendee so far is four weeks old. Two mothers have given birth since coming to the first session. We are a group who will grow together, in every sense.

Because of the brilliant response to Mothership in Bristol, we’re running a one-off Inspiration Day exclusively for women on the waiting list, taking place in May. There’ll be taster workshops and inspirational talks from fabulous novelists Lucy Clarke, Rosie Walsh, and Emma Stonex; the idea is that mums who are keen to write can connect with one another, sparking their imagination. Meanwhile a third group has now been added to the programme of workshops, and there are still a few places available for mothers from under-represented communities: spread the word!

Thank you to all who cheered, gave advice, and supported this project, both in its infancy and once launched. Thank you to the amazing Mothership volunteers, Rosie Walsh, Meg Williams and Jen Faulkner. Thank you to our brilliant project partners: Bluebell Care (perinatal mental health support), Bristol 24/7, Windmill Hill City Farm, St Werburghs Community Centre, Storysmith, and Max Minerva’s. Continued epic thanks to Arts Council England and the National Lottery for the project funding. Last thanks belong to the Mothership Writers themselves: fifty-one new mothers (and counting) who so passionately said YES to trying something new, at a time when sleep is scant and demands are plenty; THANK YOU for taking a punt, signing up, and being part of this inspiring, creative, actually pretty magical, journey.

THE BIRTH OF AN IDEA

Welcome to Mothership Writers! When the workshops get underway in April we’ll be sharing pieces of writing here in this journal — they’ll be jottings from our sessions, the ink still wet. Spring feels a particularly appropriate time to embark upon a programme of writing workshops: a time of new beginnings, and fresh shoots.

It was a spring day in 2017 when I first thought of running writing workshops in Bristol. I was at Windmill Hill City Farm, one of our two Mothership venues, with my little son. We were in the beautiful, rambling community gardens. It was mid-week, mid-morning, and the place was an oasis. There were sounds of the city - a train was rattling on the tracks, cars passing on the other side of the fence - but we were surrounded by nature. We sat on a rough-hewn wooden bench beneath the spread of a tree, and fed crumbs to a curious sparrow. We wandered the paths, past well-tended vegetable patches and lanky Foxgloves. I felt at once connected to the outside world, and separate from it. What a spot to sit and write, I thought. What a perfect venue for a writing workshop. I’d recently returned from a week teaching creative writing with Arvon, and was still aglow from the pleasure of it. I liked the idea of doing the same in Bristol — a city I’ll always connect with creative adventures and leaps of faith. Over the next year and a half the thought played at the back of my mind. We continued to visit the farm, to push diggers back and forth in the dust, coo over the plump rabbits, and pull faces at the indignant geese. I eyed the workshop rooms – a safer bet than the gardens on inclement days – and the posters for arts and craft, yoga, baby massage. It was a vibrant, inspiring community. And, as far as I could see, nobody was teaching writing here.

But when did the idea of teaching writing become teaching writing to new mothers?    

My son Calvin was born in 2014. My waters broke on the 4.30pm train from London on 5th February, after a day spent with my agent and editor; the first draft of my novel was due in a week, and my son was due three and a half weeks after that. As a natural planner I felt that I was on top of things, that I was on schedule. But that journey, spent mostly in the toilet – an intermittent phone signal thwarting my attempts to call my husband and the hospital – told me otherwise. It was, looking back, a fitting preparation for motherhood: its startling demands took me unawares. It wasn’t that I thought being a mother would be easy, I just didn’t know it would be so hard. That I’d have a new definition of tiredness. Of worry. And yes, of course, of love. I’ve never felt such a sudden and acute sense of ‘before’ and ‘after’ – and I’ve never felt happier being a writer. Writing has the power to take us out of ourselves, or to delve deeper inside: to give us wings or a head-torch.   

When I was seven weeks pregnant I threatened to miscarry, and all I could do was to sit down and write about it. I came across this piece recently, saved into an obscure file on my laptop. I’d called it Barely There, and it’s dated July 2013. Calvin was the size of a blueberry, and, we’d just been told told, his heart was beating too slowly, too faintly. ‘You’ll likely miscarry’, they said. There was nothing to do but wait, and to return for another scan in a week’s time. My husband and I trailed home from the hospital together arm in arm. We hardly talked, because it felt like there was nothing to say. Nothing to be done. But when I got home, I sat straight down to write. Would I have thought of turning to pen and paper (okay, keyboard and screen) if I weren’t already writing? I doubt it. Although I kept a Writing Diary (it started as a place to chronicle my efforts in writing my first novel, and I’ve maintained it ever since) I hadn’t written a personal diary since girlhood — plenty of life experiences had gone by without me feeling an urge to document them. That day, sitting on the sagging blue sofa we’d inherited from pervious tenants, my back to the window and the bright skies that I failed to see as optimistic, I wrote three paragraphs – 548 words, it turns out – and then I closed my laptop. Afterwards, I didn’t feel better as such, but… I felt as if I’d done what I could. I had no greater control over my destiny, but I now knew how I felt about my powerlessness, and that was better than nothing. That was, in fact, something. Looking at it now, I can see that the piece I’d written wasn’t simply an outpouring – though there is merit, and benefit, in that – but a deliberately constructed piece of writing. I’d found the story in what was happening to me, and set that down. An act of muscle memory, probably, but also the comfort, the magic, of craft. More than a year later, when Calvin was a baby, strong of both heart and will, I revisited this first piece, and included it in the novel I was working on. It’s perhaps the only time I’ve so consciously written personal fact into a piece of fiction. I did so because I felt its resonance. It was truthful, and therefore precious.

New motherhood is a landscape that demands to be documented. It is an extraordinary and wondrous and unrelenting place in which to suddenly find oneself. The climate isn’t always hospitable, and survival is everything. No traveller’s journey is ever the same, and every story should be told. I’m excited about exploring the magical properties of creativity with the Mothership Writers. Who knows where it’ll take us? Certainly there will be the pleasure of community. Good coffee. Great cake. Gardens full of spring flowers. The wellbeing benefits of putting pen to paper. And yowling, sleeping, feeding babies, oblivious – for now – of the adventures they’ve sparked.