When writing quiets the mind and soothes the heart

Sometimes the desire to write is so great, if you don’t do it immediately you feel like you might spontaneously combust. Whatever has captured your interest is so important, so necessary, that you have to write it down in order to continue breathing properly.

This is how I felt today. I took my two boys to school, their first day of 2020, and I fully expected to feel sad, and proud, and all the other appropriate adjectives. What I didn’t expect was to feel was so profoundly connected to my children, just by noticing the tiny details of that half an hour drop off.

As I walked away from the school and felt tears stinging behind my eyes for more reasons than I can mention, I knew I had to write. Immediately. I drove to the nearest library and realised it didn’t open for an hour. So there I sat. In the car. The temperature had already soared to around 35 degrees, and wrote everything I felt. I wrote without stopping. Without worrying about whether they were the right words. The best words to capture my emotions. I’ll worry about that later. I just wrote it all, and let the words and the tears fall on to the page in a big, blobby mess.

So here they are. One poem for Albi and one for Noam.

Albi

I know how you feel my love

Nervous, so nervous

It makes you angry

We’re embarrassing

Walk behind you

I remember that feeling

towards my own Mum

I get it but, oh

how it hurts

It’s not you though.

Not really

It’s those nerves

The fear that you’ve missed something

That everyone will already be friends

But not you

You’ll be alone

I know how you feel my baby

I wish I could say it changes

It doesn’t

Well, not for me

I’m just better now at hiding it

No Mum to blame

And I’m too old for that

Hang in there my love

Today will be fine

Most days will be fine

And I will be there for them all

I’ll soak up your nervous anger

And wring it out

through my tears

When I’m alone

I know how you feel

my love.

The end.

Noam

Look at you

my beautiful soul

Your brother’s cross at me

Again

You feel his pain

And mine

He walks ahead

You drop back

To tell me I’m the best Mama

I pull you close

and ruffle your hair

I don’t understand

when we arrive at the school gates

why every single child

doesn’t rush to you

and greet you with love

like the incredible friend you are.

I go to your brother’s class

He needs me

That’s ok with you

As always

Off you go

Towards year 4 alone

When I return you’re milling around

Looking for a friend

to latch on to

for those first, crippling moments

at least.

Other boys talk

and laugh

together.

You twirl around a pole

I know how you feel my love

Invitations to a party circulate

One for you?

No

I look away

I don’t understand

A boys stands near you and says hi

You talk together

And in that moment

I love this boy.

The bell rings

Off you go

Towards year 4

But not alone

Never alone

my beautiful soul.

So there you have it. I feel exhausted emotionally but if I hadn’t stopped to write these immediately, in this rough but pure form, the feelings would’ve ebbed away across the day. I couldn’t let them go. Not the words, nor my babies.

In need of a restorative tea now. Until tomorrow xx