Integrating motherhood and life

I know it’s ambitious, but I want my experience of being a mother to be an extension of my current form of living, not a separate activity

Apprehensive about unnecessary travel, I decided to listen in to my fellow Suzana Milevska’s second event at the ongoing Kunstlerhaus Buchsenhausen Focus Weeks online from my apartment in Tramin. Instead of Monday, I would leave on Wednesday for Innsbruck, with enough time to prepare for my own event, scheduled for Friday, that I’ve named after the thesis I’m building—In the Name of the Mother. I was proud of myself for having completed a heavy day of work, responding to numerous emails, ideating conceptually, with the right amount of leisure time thrown in (I’d watched the 1987 film adaptation of Dorothy Sayers’ book, Gaudy Night, referenced as the first feminist detective novel) and had even managed to cook two nourishing meals for me and my partner.

He would return home later, on account of work, so I had dinner while watching the beginnings of Suzana’s presentation that was titled, Apologoscopes of Objects, Bodies and Memories: Materiality and institutionality of apology. Part II: Aesthetics of Colonial Apology. For this session, she had invited the researcher Seraphine Appel to speak about Canada as a settler colonialist nation and to explore, more critically, its history relating to its complicity in the erasure of indigenous pasts. Appel made her case so lucidly, drawing from her exposure to indigenous intellectual engagements on the subject. It was perhaps my favourite presentation thus far for its conceptual translucency. At some point, mid-way through, I wrapped up dinner, washed up, and settled myself in my favourite red armchair, placing my laptop on the table to its left, so I had unobstructed access, placing my headphones over my ear so my partner wouldn’t be disturbed when he returned.

As I remained ‘present’ virtually at the event, I decided to continue working on my current crochet project, a baby blanket. The week before, en route to Innsbruck, I had learned, thanks to a YouTube tutorial, the Alpine stitch which involves alternating double crochet stitches in the front post of a previous row of single crochet stitches followed by double stitches into the main single crochet row. Once you get the hang of it, you get a bit addicted to the gracefulness of the movement and it is a delight to see the pattern emerge. I began with some 174 stitches or so, I cannot remember exactly, and I decided to stop counting the number of stitches of each row, instead to let go and allow the blanket to reveal itself, knowing I could somehow wrestle with the imperfections later. It’s part of my strategy to accept the mistakes as moments of altered consciousness and to embrace them as equally legitimate. Meanwhile, my partner arrived home, helped himself to the simple dinner of dal parathas and rajma. When he was done he looked at me and smiled, then took a photograph of me in my red arm chair multitasking. It’s not necessarily a flattering image. My head with dishevelled hair was leaning against the large mandala-like crochet doily I had made across the duration of my first and second trimester, begun, in fact, in June, in a train bound to Venice the morning I found out I was pregnant. I am wearing what are called Hausschuhe, warm handmade woollen shoes specially meant for Alpine winters that my partner had gifted me when he first came to India to see me in 2019. My belly is protruding and occupying space. The child inside me was also moving a lot through the lecture. I look comfortable, though, and eerily content.

I am now at week 35, gradually moving towards the end of my pregnancy. My immediate future is still uncertain. I will have more clarity next week about whether I can give birth spontaneously or if they must schedule a C-Section. Apparently the fibroid I’d had surgically removed in 2017 is the root cause of the dilemma. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about both outcomes. My friends who have given birth through both methods have told me it’s simply the most intense bodily experience one has, and I don’t know if I can even begin to anticipate the kind of emotions that await me. 

I have enjoyed reflecting on this candid image my partner took of me because it somehow represents what the last eight months have been like—a synthesis of immense physiological and hormonal transformations coupled with immensely satisfying intellectual activity. I have been really delighted in the process of nesting and setting up our home while also nourishing my mind, indulging in every opportunity that came my way that encouraged my brain to think differently. I know it’s ambitious, but I want my experience of motherhood to be an extension of this form of daring living, where I retain, fiercely, and with conviction, my sense of self while extending my body and its resources for the well-being of our child. I want to integrate it into my life and not categorise it as a separate activity divorced from every other sphere of my existence. I hope my privilege as a freelancer will allow for such an accommodation. In this moment of frailty in which I have the least control over my future, I want to believe that outlining my intentions has value, and helps me to surrender better, and to dwell, more responsibly, in mystery.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.

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