no. 37. before and after

Hello from Substack! Thank you for joining me here. (I miss the green neon already).

Also, a very huge and heartfelt thank you to all of you who bought me ko-fi coffees (You still can do so here!). The show of support has meant the world because every time someone has bought me a coffee, it has been like receiving a direct message from the universe: keep on keeping on. The real skill, of course, is to be keeping on even when people aren’t buying the coffees. Or worse, throwing their proverbial coffee in your face. I know those days are coming for me. Mean old Betty tells me all the time. But for now - thank you.  

On with the show. 

***

Anticipation is the most glorious place; the kaleidoscopic idea of all that could be without the interruption of crushing, difficult reality.

We’ve just spent a week in Italy, on one of the smaller lakes, an hour outside Milan. It doesn’t have the flash of the bigger ones. The surrounding towns are small and quiet, and in some parts quite run down. There are plenty of campsites and public spaces. The houses on the lakefront are modest. And it is otherworldly beautiful. Before we went, I just couldn’t imagine why you’d bother going near water that wasn’t the sea. The sea is where I feel most alive, most at home, most at peace, most thrilled. But then I went to this lake. And it was so beautfiul that we did something we’ve never done in seven years of holidaying together; we decided to go back.

The first time we went I was four months pregnant. This time, A was nearly 10 months and unable to stay still for longer than 0.5 seconds, unless asleep (and even then it’s not a given). So I knew there would be some stark comparisons to be made, an interesting exercise in examining holiday/life before and after the bombshell of a baby - especially as last year we went during a heatwave and this year it mostly rained, which some might interpret as a rather accurate metaphor for holidays with kids. In some ways it almost felt like a controlled experiment to highlight just how much your life can be transformed - and how some things are simply immune to change.

Before A
A holiday was still a holiday. I read endlessly, lounged, napped. We had aperitivos before late dinners. We woke when we wanted to. We swam when we wanted to. Warm evenings were spent watching the sunlight dance on the water, skin soft from the lake and the heat. Time was irrelevant because it belonged solely to us. (If I’m laying this on thick it’s because I can’t believe/stomach how good we had it).

After A
We have a 10 month old baby in a hotel where the only communal areas are outdoors and it rained four days out of six. Lunch out is a one course affair in order to be as quick as humanly possible and involves picking up toys approximately 700 times. We wake before daylight and spend precious non-rain time in a dark room singing twinkle twinkle until our arms - and our minds - feel like they might remove themselves from our bodies. 

Before
When we came last year, it was the first time I’d put my pregnant body in a swimsuit. And the minute I did, I realised a pregnant body was a ticket to a kind of freedom I’d only ever dreamed of. Thanks to the free pass baby bumps are granted from the moutain of societal horse shit young girls and women are expectecd to grow self-esteem out of, I momentarily escaped the pressure, self-loathing and judgement I normally smother myself in, and for the first time since I could remember, felt truly confident in a bikini. It was a revelation (So much so, I wrote about it for Vogue.)

After
This time, I’m back at war with my body and wishing it away, like the rain. (One morning I sat in a church and asked for a miracle. Worth a shot). The liberation of a pregnant bump has been replaced with the familiar regime of attempting to sculpt a different kind of body, and the feelings of shame and disappointment have flooded back. I know: my body has done a remarkable thing. But this I also know: the voice in the mirror that tells me I’ll look better, be better, if I was slimmer is far too settled to let something as temporary as a pregnancy push it out. Despite my ribs moving, my abdomen widening and my brain actually changing shape, that voice remaind stubbornly where it’s always been. (Maybe my next book will be a Grecian style myth about a world with no mirrors in which women levitate across crystal clear lakes, weightless and free).

Before
My heart sank when children came by the pool. I glared at parents when their kids made too much noise. I couldn’t fathom why they’d bring children somewhere so beautiful. (Maybe that’s why this year the universe sent me rain).

After
I had absolutely no idea that watching A splash in a pool for the first time, legs kicking for his little life, the energy of a wind-up toy, little hands splashing in the thrill of it all, and a smile wider than the mountains watching over us from the other side of the lake, would make up for a million rainy days. (And make me a hypocrite). Before, I thought the pool was beautiful, serene. Now it’s as precious as a first tooth, a picture in a locket. The day I held a little wiggly body in the Hockney blue, and my baby’s delight rivalled the natural spectacle behind him, was a day I just couldn’t have seen coming. Recently I heard Zadie Smith talk about the freedom of domesticity on a podcast. I didn’t get it. And then, there, under the late September sun, I knew it completely. 

Before
As I lay on a sun lounger and opened my second book of the holiday, I panicked time was running out on all the things I wanted to do.

After 
The realisation that I was utterly naive to the universes of time I had was particularly acute as I set the 20 minute timer for my turn to sit by the pool and read.

Before
Another type of liberation: If my bump eclipsed the body-shamer whispering at me from the mirror, my pregnancy put pause on my career concerns. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the worries, it’s that they fell inline with the pecking order of things. Something far more terrifying than an empty inbox was coming round the corner. I didn’t know it then but it would be the first of many times that the arrival of my son has felt, on some strange level, like being saved.

After
Are you a new mum when your baby is 10 months old? It still feels new, but it also feels like you should have your shit together. And so your worries reassemble, shuffle about, a changing playlist of what to worry about first or hardest, or what new and/or old worries to make space for. And so as we sat on the balcony while A napped, they all lined up like the little white boats zipping across the lake in front of us: Can I do this? Will I actually make this happen? Am I starting from the bottom again? Round and round they went.

Before
Anticipation is the most glorious place; the kaleidoscopic idea of all that could be without the interruption of crushing, difficult reality. It’s why I’ve always preferred Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. The unwrapped gift. The deep breath before the first word. The car journey on a Friday night. The day before the party. Perhaps that holiday felt so special because it was covered in the fairy dust of the greatest anticipation I’ll ever know. 

After
The anxiety, the tiredness, the slog, the repetition. There’s no holiday from it. But what I didn’t guess is was that there’s still anticipation. These days it looks a lot like fear: Will he be okay? Do I still have a career? In fact, most days it feels like terror: There are so many ways he could die on this stone floor. But there’s still anticipation. Because the stakes have never been higher. For him, for me, for the three of us. And so, yes, this time it rained. And no, I didn’t finish my book or catch up on sleep or get a tan. This time the days, like everday, felt like we were walking a tightrope, but as I held my breath with the intense mundanity of it all, I was reminded that sometimes, when you least expect it, the sun can come out, a magic light might dance on the water, on you, and your baby, and you can feel weightless and free, if only for a moment. And you’ll never forget this most incredible of things - the thing you never saw coming.

***

Other things

I’m struggling with Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (the only writer to win the Women’s Prize twice). I know I’m not meant to say that out loud. And I’ve actually read 300 pages. There’s a lot to like about it. But I can’t put my finger on it, something like cosy Sunday evening ITV drama does unspeakable childhood trauma in the lair of the Appalachian opioid crisis, and, to me at least, it jars.

Argentina, Mexico and Columbia have all recently legalised abortion. Now it’s Brazil’s turn - if the Supreme Court grants it. This short film is extremely raw and distressing but incredibly beautiful and incredibly brave.

And I recently discovered the Lazy Women collective - an international movement of feminists giving a platform to young creatives, including writers, designers and podcasters, all working to reclaim the word ‘lazy’ and draw attention to women’s never-ending, unpaid emotional and physical labour. Their first fundraising campaign has kicked off today and they could do with your support. Find them here. 

As ever, thank you for reading
M