A POEM FOR ANA (from 2011)

Love Begins

 This is where love begins.

I will not move until it hurts

I do not care if muscle burns,

All of me take now and keep.

A child’s mouth is on my breast

Her eyes are closed in sweet rest

I will not disturb her sleep.

Tremble, arms, under her weight!

This precious weight of silk and gold

Precious weight, life yet untold

My child, my child - my heart unfolds!

On my breast she is a-dream.

My breath on her breath depends.

I will not move ‘till her dream ends.

I will not move, I will not rise

Nor look away from treasured face.

Her future not here yet, and now

This is the only time and place

I have to love her.

So hold my breath, and set my pace

I won’t disturb her embrace.

The night is silent - the air is dark

And midnight hour is now long past.

When angel eyes open at last

And in a smile her lips part

I will remember my life’s task

To fill this universe with my heart.

MORE ABOUT THREE

It is a warm May in England and I have been wearing my favourite summer dress. It is strapless, the colour of blue clouds with a simple white pattern. It is not new. I have worn it during a couple of summers already.

We are about to go on a family holiday and will then move house as soon as we come back. I am finding myself swamped with things to do, things to pack, things to clean. This dress, although my favourite, is both old enough and comfortable enough that I don’t mind doing housework while wearing it.

Today the dress has seen me through playing with the children in the garden, cooking two meals, giving them a bath, putting them to bed (having first somehow managed to overcome the general resistance of two small rebellious bodies, full of so much energy like tiny A-bombs, and leaving a similar trail of destruction around the house). The dress took it all in its stride. It doesn’t mind what I do with it. It is not precious about being worn for work and chores. Because it knows exactly what it is that makes it my favourite.

The way it used to look with a bump underneath.

The bump is no longer here, having happily transformed into one Sacha ‘Kamikaze’ Bullock, aged 18 months, temperament generally sweet and loving although with the occasional outburst of jealousy towards his sister, favourite occupation jumping off anything that might be highly dangerous to jump off (unless I am quick enough to stop him), hence the ‘Kamikaze’ bit.

The bump is not here any more, but I am wearing my favourite dress from those times and day dreaming about another. Another bump, another baby, another child, although hopefully not another Kamikaze. One of them is really enough.

Maternity is a funny time when it comes to clothes and I had found myself not inspired to do much shopping, preferring instead to wear just a few outfits, which in the hot days of the summer boiled down to just three of four dresses very similar to this one. When the weather allowed it, I wore them on their own, proudly displaying my bump and my body widening around it. When it was cold or wet, I wore a simple hoodie on top, and a few times I swapped comfortable low-heeled wedges for cheerful wellies. Amidst all that stark non-fashion, somehow this dress stood out. Maybe the colour enchanted me, made me think about how enormous the sky was that my baby would be born under. Maybe the softness of it made me think of baby clothes, freshly washed and ironed and carefully folded, waiting their turn in the chest of draws. Something about it made me wear it again and again, so much so that when I wear it today, everything in me starts to believe that it’s that time of life again. The time of life when we create life. That we are heading from two to three. Finally.

It’s almost painful, this longing. This inexplicable, stubborn, all-consuming longing, undeterred by everything I now know about raising children and how hard it is and how much harder three would be, than two. But still.

So, it’s not that time. And I don’t know whether it will be. I am not just one, just me - I belong to something greater than the sum of its parts – my family. Before two can turn to three, many things need to be just right.

So for now, I wait, and tell the dress to wait, too.

HARMONY

FORWARD

Three.

Three is the magic number of my womb. Three is what is meant for me, for this family. I can feel it, I know it, I just have to believe that it is possible.

People say, what about the car? What about the hotel rooms, restaurant tables, all those things which are made for even numbers, for families of four not five? It’ll be like going through life with an extra leg, no pair of trousers will ever fit off the shelf. Yes, but I’ll finish first in every race, I think. The car, the holiday, the nights out – is this what I should base my dreams on? I see their little faces, now two, but three in my imagination: they are smiling at each other. A recognition of belonging. A  life-long friendship to be made. I want to nurture that, I want them to have each other when my husband and I are long gone. The gift of life, multiplied.

There are enough people in this world, say people who are already born and living. Really, I ask? If children are taught compassion, respect, kindness, will they not make this world better for everyone? To contribute, you must be here in the first place.

To make a brave new world, you need brave new soldiers born for a life of love, not war.

My body longs. It remembers the swell of the stomach, the heady mix of hormones, days which burst with emotion. The excitement and anticipation, like every day is Christmas, like every day is the first day of the best holiday of my life.

The strain of labour, a strain I took so willingly – well, in my innocence, at least. The second time round you know more, but somehow you don’t fear more – you feel more prepared in your knowledge, even if the knowledge is of how hard it will be.

The smell of a newborn baby. Is there another smell like it on Earth? That skin, wrinkled over the long months spent in the watery universe of my uterus, but almost immediately after birth it turns into velvet, into silk, into the most precious materials of this world.

People say, when you cross the road you can only hold the hands of two children. Yes, but I will teach them to be careful, I will teach them to hold each other’s hands as well as my own, I will teach them how to use the love of each other, for safety.

People say, it is hard. You don’t know how hard, until you do it. And I think yes, but I also won’t know how beautiful, until I do it.

People say, lack of space, lack of time, lack of money, lack of sleep, all illnesses multiplied by three, all arguments, all quarrels, all homework assignments and then girlfriend problems and boyfriend problems and then one day, oh all those grandchildren to look after, one day. I say, more kisses, more cuddles, more compromises, more wisdom, more patience, more learning, more faith and one day, oh all those grandchildren to look after, one day.

People say, if you’re sure, only if you’re sure you can cope. But who can ever be sure of life? You go forward with dreams and hope.

There is no certainty, ever, except the certainty that I have more than enough room in my heart.

Looking for shadow

Some days, I am invisible.

My children can see me, but no one else can. I walk around shops, play with my children in the park, hide from rain in the entrance of a supermarket. No one meets my eye. No one sees my face. I am so invisible, I don’t even have a shadow any more.

I wait for someone to walk through me as if I were a ghost, an apparition.

Loneliness weighs heavily on my invisible shoulders.

We have been in this town for a while now, but making friends is hard. When I was younger, I could meet people anywhere. At work, in the gym, in a nightclub. Friends came easily, I loved the abundance of human contact. But as I got older, I lost something of that ability to see a potential friend in everyone. I became more aware of who I am and who other people are (or seem to be), and the differences between the two. I often feel that without a long common history I cannot become close to someone. It is not that I have become choosy – it’s more that I have become weary.

Days pass, often weeks (and weeks), without me speaking to anyone who is not my children or my husband, when he comes home.

Those days sometimes feel completely filled with the joy of Ana and Sacha, and we are busy and thriving in the midst of playing, painting, baking, having picnics in the garden (when it’s sunny) and having picnics on the living room floor (when it’s raining, which is more often). In those days, I only seem to notice things which are good about our life – I feel grateful, and these two children are truly everything I need in this world.

But other times, there is a different feeling – a sense of lack, a sense of constraint, like when you have been inside a closed room for too long and the air no longer feels fresh. I long to speak to an adult about a piece of news I heard on the TV. I wish to discuss my voting choices with somebody, or talk about what is going on in the world. I want to recommend a book I have just finished reading. I want to complain about the weather (all that rain, again), about the amount of laundry I never seem to get on top of, about how my children are fussy eaters and how I wish they would sleep longer in the morning. Sometimes, I want to indulge in a bit of gossip about day time television. Yes, even that.

On those days, I feel invisible. The people around me go about their business, no one speaks to me, no one nods as I walk by, the invisibility cloak covers me from head to toe. I feel like I don’t really exist, except in my own head, in my own consciousness. I feel restless, I flicker from one thing to the next without giving myself fully, just going through the motions sometimes, counting the hours until my husband comes home. I do not find my children boring – it would be hard to find them boring when they change by the minute, grow by the hour, every day brings something new about them – but the relentless and repetitive rhythm of our days, combined with that peculiar isolation that comes from being a stay-at-home-mother, sometimes seeps into my brain, gets under my skin, makes me see the world in grey, pushes down on me with oppressive hands.

At the preschool which Ana attends, every morning I see women, just like me, dropping their children off for a morning of socialising and play.

Somehow I have always felt that I don’t have anything in common with those women, except the fact that we are mothers. We don’t know each from school, work, or any social environment. We nod politely and move out of the way of each other’s prams, smiling to each other’s children in passing, as we know that they are friends with ours. Some women are talkative and others are shy, but no one exchanges anything but the most perfunctory chit-chat about the weather, about always running late everywhere because kids won’t put their shoes on, about what to put into snack boxes.

I have always felt that we are essentially strangers, and strangers we will remain.

But I observed them today, suddenly, in a new light. Most of them, like me, have that I-haven’t-had-time-to-brush-my-hair look which seems hard to get rid of once the number of someone’s children rises above one (or even zero, perhaps). Most of them look vaguely under slept, dressed in casual clothes which reveal that we no longer take such pride in our appearance as when we were young and child-free (but the children are dressed with great care). Every single of one of them - of us - has a beaming smile of sheer delight when we spot our children through the glass playgroup door and when they run towards us at the end of their session.

How could I think that I have nothing in common with these women? How could I have ever thought that?

What we share is that we have all carried these children in our bellies and managed to get them out somehow (by some means or another, never easy on our bodies, always giving birth to ourselves as mothers, in the process); the sleepless nights of looking after newborns who like to cuddle and play in the middle of the dark hours; the rushed meals eaten with one hand while the other holds a breastfeeding baby, cups of tea gone cold, always attending to someone else’s needs before our own, happily so (at least most of the time!). 

What we share is anxiety over raised temperatures, over upset tummies, over first hours and days of our children being away from us – in preschool or nursery; the frantic trying to get everyone ready in the morning, running after a toddler while carrying a baby in one arm and a changing bag in the other, answering multiple simultaneous questions and demands (where is my cup/where is my dolly/why do we have chicken for lunch/I want cheese for lunch/I need potty/I want to sit in your lap/me too/me too). 

We have been mothering, to the best of our abilities, to the full extent of our power, knowledge and wisdom, we have made that our mission and task in this life, and sometimes it seems like life only started when our children were born.

We might have many differences between us, we may be of different ages and looks and hair and skin colours, different backgrounds and interests and things we love and hate. But one thing we all love is our children and we care for them every day. It’s a whole world of shared experiences.

Amongst these women, I should be looking for the possibilities of the future - this is where I should be looking for my shadow. 

ON TRAVELLING WITH SMALL CHILDREN

“Right. You, stand here. Ana, grab both of his hands and don’t let go. This will only take a second. Sacha, hold Ana’s hands. Don’t move.”

With these words opens the Season of Optimism 2014. We are at the Nikola Tesla airport in Belgrade, about to depart for the UK. I have with me two children (aged 3 and 1), one rucksack stuffed with snacks, books and toys (approximate weight 1000 kilos) and one blue Bugaboo pushchair (easy to fold, bought for child no. 1 now enjoyed by child no. 2, hence in various states of dirt and disrepair – but still cool. And light. And manageable on any surface).

We are standing in front of the huge X ray tunnel. Well, it’s just your usual X ray machine but it looks like a tunnel to me, a never ending tunnel which swallows anything that approaches it, almost like a black hole right here in the middle of the airport. I have to put the precious pushchair through it (we have another pushchair at home; but here, there is of course only this one – the one I am about to fold and trust into the jaws of the X-ray black hole; I hope it comes out at the other end, or I will be in much trouble trying to catch two children with two legs each, tiny little legs capable of running very fast and surprisingly far).

When Sacha was smaller (or even Ana, for that matter, while she was still an only child and we used to travel back and forth) I used to just thrust him into the arms of the nearest unsuspecting traveller, passer by, innocent observer or security guard, when I had to take him out of the pushchair in order to fold it. Sacha (and Ana, before him) used to hate that, and protest loudly. But things have moved on; these are the toddler times; Sacha is perfectly capable of standing by himself, I just have to make sure he doesn’t do that other thing he is also perfectly capable of – a ‘runner’.

Hence the above Quote of Optimism.

But low and behold, the unexpected happens. Ana holds Sacha firmly, Sacha loves this new game and hold her back equally firmly. No one runs anywhere, we pass the security control and the passport control and another security control and the gate control and surely some other controls (they seem never ending), and without an incident/drama/meltdown under our belt, we make it onto the plane.

And so our journey home starts.

The time away, was in a word – perfect. We used every day of sunshine to walk, play and meet friends outside (and every day was sunshine). We used every moment of relaxation to bond, cuddle, tickle and giggle (and all moments were of relaxation). We used every bit of courage to hold back the tears when we had to say our goodbyes (but still there were tears, as no courage is enough when you have to say goodbye to people you love dearly).

Now, on the plane, the rucksack gets its five minutes of glory. Oh, the rucksack, the magic bag that contains Everything We Could Possibly Need – small bottles of ready made Aptamil (easy to pour, no mess), crayons and books for drawing and colouring in, two books of stickers because, if you’re travelling Ipad free (and I refuse to cave in and become just another parent who zones out while the children are zoned in to the BBC Iplayer episodes of CBeebies – for now at least), you better have some sticker books with you! On top of that, a couple of favourite toys, a couple of small wind up toys which make Sacha laugh (Ana, being more than a year and a half older, is infinitely easier to entertain and more self-sufficient by now), one book of stories, a book of farm animals which takes a long time to get through (if you do all the animal noises), which is a bonus. And finally, of course, the snacks – a Serbian variety of baby biscuits which even our health-conscious family considers to be a healthy snack (the power of paradigm in action!) and some ever-so-slightly-salty fish shaped nibbles which children, for some mysterious reason, simply adore. Water, change of clothes, nappies et al – that completes the list of what I pack in the hand luggage, when travelling with small children. Two of them, please. Yes, I’ll have those to go.  J

Someone said to me once that “everyone believes in God at 30,000 feet”. As an atheist, I entirely and completely agree.

It’s not the fear of crashing that makes me suddenly religious, oh no.

It’s not the fear of being high-jacked by terrorists.

It’s not the anticipation of the “Brace yourselves” command issued urgently over the radio (although I don’t like flying), nor the uneasy feeling as we fly over water and I try to judge what our chances would be on impact.

No no no. It’s the fear of Losing Control of the Small Passengers. Of that first shriek which can mean the dreaded I-will-scream-for-the-rest-of-the-flight-and-there’s-nothing-you-can-do-about-it opening line. Of the meltdowns, with a reason or for no reason, because of tiredness or hunger or pressure in the ears or the extortionate duty free prices or the total ban on smoking (even in the toilets) or all of the above. Or anything else. Anything that has the potential to turn my happy, easy going children into tiny tyrants, ready to shame me in front of the whole plane (and who would ever think that opinion of strangers could worry you so much!) as an Incompetent Mother.

But amazingly, this doesn't happen. I have been travelling, mostly alone, with these two little people since each of them was less than four months old, and they travel well. And get better with age. It’s almost too good to believe.

As we sit in our crammed seats, ignoring the bossy air-hostesses and enjoying each other’s proximity, this lack of conflict and anxiety means we can all, in our own way, process the memories of the month in Serbia and what we’re leaving behind. Me, by picturing some of the best moments and swallowing a tear or two. Ana, by colouring in "Peppa Pig On Holiday" (thanks, Peppa, for the support!). Sacha, by trying to put his toes in his mouth. It’s all therapeutic.

Here are some of those moments, I guess.

And so we head on home, into the arms of the man, the father and the husband, who eagerly awaits us. He's been a trouper over this last month. It can't be easy. But he makes it look easy.

We make it back into the familiarity of our home, children are in love with all of their old toys again, I’m delighted to see that all the plants are still alive, the bed is made with fresh and nicely ironed sheets, the fridge is full – hey, I married well. He’s a keeper (unless he had a secret house keeper, while we were gone – but that’s okay by me, if this is what I find on return!)

Tomorrow, or the day after, we will Skype with Serbia and talk about what a great time we all had. Life goes on. With love, it’s all possible.

ON WAITING TO GO

We are waiting to go.

Once, twice, three times in a year, this is what happens. There is some happiness, and  a good deal of sadness too. There are hellos and goodbyes, in rapid succession. There is travelling by plane and by car, and travelling within soul and through time. New and old places are reached, in reality and in memory. Two worlds collide. Everyone is richer from it, and no one escapes completely unharmed.

I go to where I originally belonged, before I started belonging here (although, perhaps, I don’t belong anywhere – we can call that being a citizen of the world, or it might just mean that too many changes have taken place for any one identity to accept them all).

The journey from here to there is more than just a flight away. To actually get from here to there, it takes more than two suitcases, my and Ana’s and Sacha’s passports, more than knowing the flight times and return dates. To get from here to there takes a great leap of faith. It takes a trust that what I leave will still be here when I come back (and life offers no such guarantees – as I have seen in my past; any goodbye can be the final goodbye, without anyone knowing that yet). And it takes a belief that what I am about to find, there, is actually what I am looking for (and already I know that, if I look long enough, it is not – it’s a mirage in the sky, it’s a vision from the past, a place that doesn’t exist any more; still, I go searching).

I leave behind the English people and way of life; the separate taps for hot and cold water, the inexhaustible topic of the weather, the joys of a real, functioning democracy and the pains of broken Britain. The supermarkets full of mass-produced food which only looks perfect, the clean streets and the tidy, inviting gardens. The children’s playgrounds in which the swings are never broken, the churches which hold playgroups for toddlers, with tea and biscuits for the worn out mothers. The good schools, the bad schools. The north south divide, the confusions over what is one’s tea and what is one’s dinner. The accents which make life’s paths tougher, or smoother. The people and their politeness, their civility; their warmth and also their distance which can’t be crossed.

Most of all, I leave behind my husband, I leave him, and then I miss him badly. Is that so terrible, you say, a little holiday away, absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that? Of course. But missing is still missing, and the reward you anticipate at the end makes it no easier now.

And then I immerse myself in Serbia. Serbia doesn’t begin when we land. Serbia starts when we board. All those voices, the words, the language. I know where I am, straight away. I am in Serbia, although we haven’t taken off yet. Serbian people take the air around them and change it. You can tell that something’s become thicker, sweeter, a bit heavier at times. You just have to nod your head and embrace it.

All these Serbian people on board! I remember a time, not so long ago, when only the very lucky had the papers to travel anywhere. And they travelled into the world as if they were just swapping villages. Carrying big bags with freshly roasted chickens which would make the whole airplane salivate. Never trust foreign food, those Serbs. Bring your own and bring the best. Show what you have. Always fighting with immigration control, waving the invitation letters from cousins long emigrated, putting money on the counter (no, not bribe – although that would make things much easier to understand, for us – no, this is just to show that we are for real, we can afford it, we are not here to beg. Atlhough often, in reality, we are).

Nowadays, a bit more sophisticated, the plane hasn’t quite touched down yet and everyone is already on their mobile phones, their conversations are urgent, a true Serb never waits, patience left somewhere in the Middle Ages.

That doesn’t sound good, does it? All that, just doesn’t sound so good, really.

But how does this sound.

The family I said goodbye to twenty years ago, still there, not even aged much (although not in full numbers; those who are missing, have left behind their energy embedded in every object they’d ever touched;  my mind draws their shapes in the empty spaces). The family, who I can make happy by asking them for something. By giving them a chance to give something. You can never have that elsewhere.

My mother, and her hands, who still want to cook favourite childhood meals or fix my buttons – mum, I’m almost forty! I say. But no good, she knows I can’t sow to save my life. We hug a lot in Serbia, and I always start with my own mother, first.

But there are many more in the queue.

I step outside my mother’s flat - my old home - I look around and here it is again! That third dimension. It’s back. The world is in 3D again and it looks glorious. The colours are more vivid. The sounds are sharper. I realise I had been watching a black and white film all this time, and I confused it for my life. It hurts, and it makes me deliriously happy to be here at the same time.

The trees smell different - what is it about this place, do the flowers have more pollen? Are the bees here faster, harder working? Is the wind here milder, spreading the scent molecules more gently? Is the sunshine more golden, warming the ground more thoroughly?

In the morning, I walk to the shops, listening to the sounds of life around me. A dog is barking somewhere (there are lots of dogs roaming freely in Serbia – I can’t really call them stray – they are street pets of their towns), through an open window I can hear a telephone ringing, someone else is listening to their TV a bit too loud, a woman is putting out her washing on the squeeking line which stretches between two blocks of flats. The comforting, ordinary, magical sounds of life happening in every place and in every moment, but nowhere more hungrily so than here.

Serbia has been through a lot. The people have been through a lot. An average Serb’s favourite historical fact is that our king used to eat using knife and fork at a time when the English king still used his fingers. A lot of very muddy water has passed under the proverbial bridge since then, unfortunately. Still, the Serbian hunger for life, their skill for survival, their sheer life force, remains undiminished. And everyone who comes here catches that illness too, the illness of the Slavic heart that beats to a different rhythm.

Even my children feel it, when we’re they’re here. They seem to come out of themselves in completely new ways. Even my husband feels it, on occasions when he joins us for a few days. But then, everyone here has always called him “foreign, but our own”. This mild-mannered Englishman and this strange land seem to have their own connection, the nature of which isn’t completely clear even to me.

When the time comes for goodbyes, I am never ready. My life in England is my real life as I spend most of my time  there. It is the life of my head, a life of events and doings. My life in Serbia, where I spend so little time, is the secret life of my heart. It is a life of memories and pictures and flashbacks and fantasies, impossible and heartbreaking fantasies.

One is not better, or more important than the other. One is not more valid than the other. It’s just that one goes deeper, much deeper, all the way into the blood that makes up who I am.

Those are my thoughts these days, while we are waiting to go.

Extract from "Jealous Moon Above Serbia"

In autumn, Serbia smells of roasted red peppers. All over the country, Serbian women are preparing food for the winter. The weather is still very mild and the windows of Serbia are open, allowing the smell of peppers to escape. You can tell the season, and the time of day by it.

In the morning, people rush to work. They buy pastries and yoghurt, spread home made jam on slices of bread. In the afternoon, they are back home and eat lunch with their families. They talk about their day, about politics. Often they talk about prices. Parents talk freely in front of children. Children have a vague notion of the word “economising”. They eat, they rest, they watch the afternoon movie on the television.

In early sunset, when the heat of the day has passed somewhat, the red peppers, colourful and full of flavour like the land itself, fill the ovens of Serbia and the smell of roasting invades the streets. 

One can tell with eyes closed that it’s autumn in Serbia, and early evening, basking in golden light.

ON ILLNESS

Anyone who has children knows that they get ill.

They get ill often, they get ill easily, and if one of them is in any sort of day-care, they get ill twice as much and twice as messy and twice as hard. As a parent, you accept that. After a while, you expect it, too. And while you are looking forward to the time when their little immune systems become a bit stronger, you know how to handle their illnesses, you don’t freak out so easily any more, you take it in your stride and try to act like, as my daughter would say, “a real doctor” (well – a self taught nurse, maybe).

Which is why when Sacha’s nose was running for one week, but otherwise he seemed completely well in himself, I didn’t really worry too much. I didn’t take him to the doctor’s because we'd been through a situation like that so many times that I knew off by heart the questions I would be asked:

-          Is he eating?
Yes.
-          Does he have fever?
No.
-          Is he showing any other signs of being ill?
No.
-          Does he seem his normal self?
Yes.

With the inevitable conclusion, it is just a virus, it will pass in its own time. No medication is needed and antibiotics wouldn’t have any effect on a virus anyway. Come back if anything changes for the worse.

 Little man in the early days. 

And then last Tuesday it changed for the worse.

We were in the middle of getting the children ready for bed. I had stripped Sacha off his day time clothes and was enjoying a quick moment of snuggle against his warm, naked skin. And then I thought – his skin feels hot. Not just a little bit warm, as I would expect from a delicious baby who’s just come out of a bath, but actually fever-hot.

Some Calpol later, he seemed better, although the night brought even less sleep than usual. But in the morning, he started to burn up and I rang the doctor to request a same-day appointment. I was told that someone could see him at 6 o’clock that evening so we settled in for a quiet morning of TV and snuggles on the sofa. Wayne came home at lunchtime to take over as I needed to get Ana to a sport session. When we left the house, I didn’t really worry, Sacha was a little subdued but in very good hands.

Then, in the middle of the sport session, an SMS arrived:

‘Little man woke up burning up. Very high fever. What do I give him?’

I was relieved when Ana’s class was over and we could get back home. Sacha was still very hot despite the medication that Wayne had given him, lethargic, just wanted to be held and to snooze in someone’s arms.

Around 5 o’clock his fever was 39.5 and I wasn’t quite sure what to do. It was too soon to give him another Calpol, I wasn’t sure about the minimum time that must elapse before trying some Calprofen, I didn’t really want his fever to get any higher, and I decided to call 111 (this is a new NHS service for when you need quick help, but it’s not an emergency). While I was on the phone to them, his fever kept going up. I was checking it every few minutes as I almost disbelieved my eyes, but it went up, and up, and up, until it reached 40.8 degrees Celsius. I wasn’t sure whose heart was beating more wildly, his little one or mine. Thankfully it was now almost 6 o’clock and Wayne could take him to the doctor.
They came back with some antibiotics – ‘just in case’ – and some basic advice on what to do with high fever – strip them down, keep them cool, and so on, all stuff we already knew. The doctor wasn’t concerned, he’d said children react to viruses with high fevers, this was quite common and he just needed to ride it out.

A second restless and sleepless night ensued for all of us. In the morning, Sacha looked dreadful. His skin, usually a pearly pink, was almost yellowish in its tone. His blue eyes looked huge but pale, the whites coloured with pink blood vessels, dark marks underneath them. He didn’t want to be put down for a second. He had by then had two doses of the antibiotic but it didn’t seem to make any difference. He was refusing all food and water, and although it was early in the day, was again starting to burn up. We tried all the medication again but nothing would bring his fever down.

Within a couple of hours, the thermometer was reading 40.8 degrees again and I rung the doctor again, with just a trace of panic in my voice. I had never experienced one of my children having such high temperature and I had no idea what might happen from it – would it just keep rising up and up and up? Until when? What would happen then?

“He’s just really really poorly”, I said to the doctor with that insistence of a mother who just knows when her child is not right, however much the doctor of the previous night didn’t seem to think that anything particular was going on. Then Sacha started throwing up, the house looked like we were in the middle of a war, I didn’t want them to miss the appointment but Sacha just wouldn’t stop being sick, everything became very hectic and even more stressful. Finally I managed to dress him and ushered Wayne & him out of the door – the doctor’s is where they needed to be, and fast.

Ana and I stayed at home and waited. Ana was drawing and painting and I was cleaning and tidying up like a maniac. Partly to bring the house back into order, partly to pass the time which was moving at the speed of – well, if speed of light is the greatest speed which exists in the universe, then time that morning was moving at its exact opposite, the speed of darkness.

Finally, Wayne called me. “We are just waiting for an ambulance now. Sacha has to go straight to hospital.”

None of my questions could be answered because hospital was where they would examine him further, do tests, try to understand what was going on.

“I will call you as soon as I know more”, Wayne said.

More painting, more cleaning. I will forever be grateful to my daughter for the patience and maturity she displayed that morning. She just entertained herself, stayed very quiet and calm, and allowed me to pace the house and clutch the phone like a mad woman without any disturbance from her – more than you should expect from any child, really, let alone a three year old.

Finally, Wayne called again.

“You and Ana should get ready and come over now”, he said. “I don’t have anything with me, not even nappies, so bring some stuff. Little man is still as hot as before, and sleeping, so they’re just waiting and observing him for now.”

What stuff, I thought to myself. Stuff for staying over? For him, for me? For how long?

With what brain cells were still functioning, I packed a rucksack with necessities, got Ana dressed and called a taxi. The operator must have sensed a real urgency in my voice (coupled with my stated destination) as he said he’d find an available car straight away.

We were only on the street waiting for a couple of minutes before a taxi arrived. We jumped in, and first drove to the nearest cash point. When I got back inside the car with the required funds, the driver looked at me in the mirror and asked:

“You are going to Cheltenham General, aren’t you?”

“No, no, I’m going to Gloucester Royal hospital, I’ve told you already’, I replied somewhat unkindly, with impatience. My mind was a beehive of thoughts and worries. Where did Sacha catch whatever it was that was making him so ill? Had I taken him outside and not put his winter hat on? (No). Had I dressed him too warmly and allowed him to get sweaty? (No). Had I let his nappy overflow in the night and soak his clothes and not change him soon enough? (No). Had I let strangers who harbour god-knows-what-germs kiss him and cuddle him in the street? (No). Was I somehow to blame for his illness through whatever it was that I had, or had not done? Absolutely.

The man’s voice startled me from my thoughts.

“You’re in the wrong cab, madam. I’m really sorry, this car was not for you, it was for one of your neighbours. I didn’t realise at first, I apologise.”

I could barely believe my ears, as it became clear what had happened. What was the chance that we, at no. 3, would be calling a taxi for one hospital at the exact same time as our neighbours at no. 7 were calling for another? I felt awful – we live in an area with many elderly people and I was hoping I hadn’t made somebody else’s emergency even more urgent.  At the same time, I was desperate to get to the hospital to be with Sacha.

Eventually, the driver decided to tell his controller that he couldn’t just chuck Ana and me out on the street, so we stayed on and raced on towards the hospital. (At the same time, I was swearing an oath to myself that I would start driving again as soon as humanly possible – but that’s another story).

When we arrived at the hospital and the right ward, we were shown to a bed sectioned off with some lively coloured curtains (this was a children’s ward, after all), and behind the curtain there was (what seemed like) a huge big bed on which lay one little boy, poorly as anything, looking very sorry for himself. Next to him was my husband, smiling with worried eyes.

Sacha was completely naked (the doctors were trying to catch some bodily fluids, for analysis), just in a tiny hospital gown which was open and showing his pale body that seemed to have become void of any puppy fat over the last two days.

I would never have though that I’d be so relieved to be in a hospital. But the worry and the responsibility of having to make the correct decisions for his health had completely worn me down. It wasn’t that I didn’t want the responsibility, it was that my total lack of any medical knowledge (outside of the usual parameters of being a mother) made that decision making precarious and stressful at the very least. Here, he was being looked after by the experts. Here, we would all be looked after and everything would be fine.

Sacha had to have all manners of unpleasant tests done, from bloods to X ray, and the outcome was that he had pneumonia.

“But not a really bad one”, the doctor said, “thankfully.”

Thankfully.

How and why and where from would he get pneumonia, is a different question and one with which I have tormented myself since. But the doctor said, it’s just one of those things, they catch it from the environment, it isn’t anything that we (the parents) had done.

But you always feel like it’s something you’ve done, or something you missed. That I should have taken him to the doctor sooner (although we were told that his snuffles the week before were simply not the same illness as this – that when he started to seem seriously ill is when he got seriously ill - and we reacted immediately to that).

There was a moment in the hospital when Sacha and I were left alone, after he’d had another nap and now I was coaxing him to eat some refreshing, cold apricot yoghurt. It was early evening and the noises of other patients around us were subdued. Another parent was playing a lullaby (on a mobile, perhaps) to their own sick child, a couple of bays away. The hospital, and in this we are extremely lucky, was very new and clean and everything seemed shiny and well looked after. The staff were wonderful, the doctors not embarrassed to make funny faces to make the children laugh and feel less scared. The lights were dimmed, the bed was strangely comfortable, the white sheets, although clearly belonging to a hospital, were perfectly ironed and incredibly clean. For a moment, I felt such calm that it was almost as if I had taken a strong sedative. I felt that we were safe, I felt that we were in a good place, not a place of sickness and worry but a place of caring knowledge and help, I was grateful for this moment of peace and tranquility after the dizzying madness of the day, and most of all, I was grateful that my child would be well, soon.

And I wished with all my heart that the same would be true for all the other little occupants of the beds around us.

As the proverb says, first health, then wealth. We know this every day of our lives, but sometimes, a light shines on it and we can see it very, very clearly, and we are reminded never to take it for granted.

ON BEAUTY

If beauty is only skin deep, I’m in real trouble. Because my face is misbehaving again.

Somewhere in the middle of the blissful hormones of my second pregnancy, I noticed a slight mark under my left eye. It developed over the course of a few weeks, starting to take on that well known dry and red appearance of eczema.

At first I didn’t worry. I make a very happy pregnant woman so anything less than a second head growing on my shoulders would have left me unconcerned for the time being (little did I know what was to follow). Not wanting to just self-diagnose, I went to the doctor but he confirmed what I already knew. Yes it was eczema, very mild and extremely tiny, and it would go within days upon application of a particular cream. Apparently.

Ah, the cream. Or rather, the creams, I should say. To start with, I was prescribed a long list of so called ‘barrier’ creams. Now, I’m not the one to speak against the marvels of oil and its multiple uses in our modern society (however much of a limited time span it has). Still, I don’t feel particularly happy about putting oil derivatives and things made almost exclusively from paraffin, on my face of all places. And my face felt the same way, clearly, because the little dry red mark grew bigger, redder, drier. And other things started to appear on it.

Then we moved on to steroids. Usual concerns about skin thinning etc (again, face being the one place where you’d really like to avoid that if you can). Not much agreement amongst the health professionals, however.

“You could use this every day for the rest of your life and you won’t get skin atrophy”, said one doctor to me.

“I am absolutely not allowed to sell it to you to put it on your face”, said one pharmacist.

Between the push and the hard place, my face was getting worse.

Then, I had the baby. Oh, the celebrations! The pictures of the happy family, the memento for the future. Still, something wasn’t right.

“Don’t you think”, I said to my mum one evening (she was staying with us at that time), “that in all the photos my face looks a lot thinner on one side than on the other?”

(Not in the photos we put on Facebook because they get seen by entire family in Serbia and hence are heavily censored first!)

My mum responded, with the careful and empathic tone of voice you reserve for telling someone that  yes, their hair really is thinning at the back (where they can’t even see): “It’s not that one side has become thinner, darling – it’s the other side that’s really swollen”. Oh great. So my little friend under my left eye was not only spreading and making itself more comfortable on my face, but I now had to put up with a swelling too.
But like I said, even that was only the beginning.

If we were going on any sort of holiday, had a meet up with friends etc, I would apply steroid cream furiously for a week or two before, just in order to look normal. It worked, very short term. As soon as I stopped, the eczema was getting worse. It spread, eventually covering my entire left cheek, then my right, both eye lids and around the eyes, down my neck and even onto my collar bones. The skin went from looking red and dry to being painfully raw, peeling, swollen, often bleeding from tiny openings in the crusty, swollen, flaking surface (with a little help from my scratching, but anyone who’s ever had eczema will testify that there is no itch like it in this world).

On a bad day, I looked like Freddy Kruger. On a less bad day (there were no good days for a long while) I looked like a victim of some dubious cosmetic procedure that went wrong.

In the morning, I was waking up with a face that was scary to look at, even for me. I started to worry how this might be affecting my family, did my children find it repulsive, my husband? Well, you never really need to worry about your children. They don’t judge you, they just love you, and when I was only exposed to their eyes I completely felt my normal self. As for my husband, well we’ve been together through two births so in some ways he’s seen worse!

My face was sore, on fire, hurting, itching, weeping. I was waiting to see a specialist and in the meantime nothing was helping – natural creams, unnatural creams, homeopathy, changing my diet, meditation – nope.
I’ve never considered myself to be particularly vain but even I didn’t feel completely indifferent to people doing a double take when they passed me on the street. Or even worse (and a little bit funny), I would forget about it for a moment, and while I’m speaking to some person somewhere (say, customer services in a shop), a realisation would slowly dawn on me that they’re really staring at me. And I’d think to myself, wow, they’re staring at me like I’ve got scrambled egg on my face, do I? And then I’d remember, it was that other thing I had all over my face. And then it would be funny and also a little bit not funny too.

One day, I bumped into a couple of women I knew from a local baby group, whom I hadn’t seen for a year. It was a warm and sunny day, I had my children with me, I wasn’t thinking about my face, I was feeling good about life.

“So, how are you?” they asked. “Great,” I beamed, “the kids are fab, I’m really enjoying tings at the moment”. They were looking at me with barely concealed incredulousness. “Yes, but…how are you?” they asked again, a minute later, clearly waiting for some sort of explanation about what might be happening to my exterior. But it was only later I realised that.

So, it was frustrating, and then it became completely liberating, in the end. Yes, this was my face. It had something big on it, and if you still liked it – well, then, you must have really liked the real me. And if you hated it – I could sort of understand that, because I hated it too but I had no choice. But I stopped worrying. In fact, for the first time in my life as a female (a female in this modern society which still primarily judges women on how they look), I actually didn’t have to worry about my looks in the slightest. I had gone so far the other way that, ironically, for the first time I had to just accept myself, not just with all the (comparatively) tiny flaws I’d used to focus on in the past, but with this huge thing that wouldn’t go away, but I realised that underneath I was exactly the same before, so that was fine.

The experience also made me realise how challenging life must be for any person who looks different on a permanent basis, because of a disfigurement, disability or anything else that visibly sets them apart from the norm. While people are not necessarily unkind, no one can help but stare at something they consider unusual and some people have to live with this their entire life. In the scheme of things, what was happening to me was negligible, nothing compared to what some people went through every day. It made me feel humble, and it made me feel very grateful for all those years when I didn’t have any skin problems, when my face was peachy and youthful and completely taken for granted by me.

Eventually I got to see a specialist, who prescribed a new cream, which eventually worked. Bit by bit, my skin got better and life went back to normal.

But as it tends to go with these things, this only worked for a while, and now it’s coming back. I know I now have treatment options open to me and hopefully it won’t get as bad as last time, but at the same time I’m starting to accept that this problem will probably be recurring for life and that I may have to, actually, make friends with my little friend.

In the meantime, I have now at least bought a camera with a pretty good airbrush function!  

ON THE LONG WAY UP

So, I am a writer. And like every writer, I like to receive the occasional good news. So when my mum sent me a message on Facebook saying “I have some really good news for you”, I started smiling even before I knew what it was about.

Any of you who know me in real life will know about my play. The Play. The one and only play (of mine, obviously – Shakespeare, I believe, has written loads). “The Wall”. This play was written a couple of years ago, it started off as a text slightly too short for any professional purpose (even as a one-act job), but it caught the eye of a wonderful theatre director Daniel Coleman who then helped me to develop it further. Fast forward to 2014, I have now been in possession of a full length theatre script (with my name on it!) for a while and I have periodically been sending it to competitions, submission calls etc. Needless to say, it is my pride and joy, in fact I sometimes feel as if I have three babies and the script is one of them (and on a bad day, the one I’m least likely to give up for adoption). Just joking!

It’s been a funny and mixed bag of responses. Some literary managers have really loved it, and others have found flaws with it, the most frequent objection being that it is too much like the famous “Waiting for Godot”. I must say, apart from the fact that there are three characters, two of whom are dressed in rags, I don’t actually see the similarities. This is a story about a couple who are in political exile and it explores the themes of isolation and ignorance, and what that does to us. It looks into how an oppressed person can become the same as their oppressors, if they start to live a life of isolation and paranoia. I’ve even thrown in a murder, for good measure! It has a very clear and specific political message, and while it is a little bit abstract in places and may broadly fit into the ‘theatre of absurd’ bracket, it really isn’t just a pale shadow of Beckett’s famous play (although that would, essentially, be a compliment!).

The play has had two minor (or major, in my mind!) recent successes. In autumn 2013 it was short-listed by the Bristol Old Vic theatre in their annual Open Session competition, getting inside the top 30. Later on in 2013, it was long-listed in the top 100 for the very very prestigious and important Bruntwood Prize (for this one, we opened a bottle of nice wine in the evening and I slept in with a hangover the next day).
But the news, the news my mum had for me, was fantastic! I had recently sent the play to an important competition in my own home country of Serbia (the play was originally written in Serbian, so that made it easier!). Sterijino Pozorje, founded in 1956 and still one of the most important theatre institutions in the whole of Serbia (and Serbia is - perhaps surprisingly for a small, poor former Eastern-block country - a rather fertile thespian ground) was running a competition for best new drama and the results were out. Oh, the results! Well, I didn’t win (again). But I did get into the shortlist of top 5! (Or top 6, including the winner). In fact, my play was one of the 5 they recommended for publication and production. If you can by some chance read Serbian, you can read all about it here:

http://www.pozorje.org.rs/vesti.htm

Just before you say, “okay, so you’re always the bridesmaid and never the bride”, let me just make something clear: I love writing. I love writing so much that I write late at night, after the children have gone to bed and Sacha has finished waking up for the 100th time and all the chores have been done and the new day is just around the corner and I know I will be tired and exhausted when it comes, I love writing so much that my head is always swimming with ideas and plots and 8-point arcs and resolutions and reversals, and in fact, if I didn’t write, I might just go a little bit mad (well, a little bit madder than I already am, you’ll agree). So to hear that a panel of judges, respected professional judges who hopefully know what they’re talking about, thought that my play was worthy of more than just using for scrap paper – well, that’s worth all the tiredness in the world.

(Here are the two little people on their way to bed so mummy can get down to some work :-) )

So here we are. Yes, I totally agree, always a bridesmaid and never a bride. And yet, and yet, you should never say never….Next time, some other lucky runners up might be celebrating their own little slice of the good news cake, and the winner might be me! You never know! Anything could happen! I promise you I will have one mighty hangover, if that happens. And while I’m waiting, I’m writing new stuff.

If you are also a writer for the theatre and want to submit your work to some new submission calls (particularly if you live in the South West, like I do), follow the links below. Mind the deadline however – some are as early as 1st March. Better get writing!

Thanks for reading.

BBC WRITERS ROOM

TOBACCO FACTORY - BRISTOL

SALISBURY THEATRE

FINBOROUGH THEATRE LONDON

BUSH THEATRE LONDON

ON GROWING

So, our little toddler is slowly turning into a preschooler. Ana’s transition from two to three hasn’t been without its share of difficulty, but now, on the cusp of her third birthday, she has almost completely blossomed into this new person – a little girl who is endlessly more flexible, content and co-operative than the one who used to cry if I put the wrong colour bowl in front of her at breakfast (that being, nonetheless, pretty normal behaviour for that age).

But this post isn’t actually just about Ana (although I often feel that everything in life is somehow about Ana – she is never far from my thoughts and everything reminds me of her, brings her smell to me in sudden gusts). This post is actually about the weekend we celebrated her birthday, and what happened to us, her parents, rather than to the birthday girl herself. And, you know, sometimes even the parents have important things happen to them, too. I think.

We used to live somewhere else (from where we do now). We didn’t live there for an eternity, but long enough – five or six years is quite enough to leave your heart in a place. Before that, we used to live somewhere else again, and before that, the same…You get the drift. We move a lot. Or used to, at least. Every move was a time of transition which had to be handled with care – if you move on too quickly, you risk forgetting where you came from (literally and metaphorically – you might forget not just the place, but all the life that you lived there, and who you became during that time). You need to maintain those links of the past with the present or you can weaken your sense of self, start to float, rootless. The other extreme, of course, is that you only move forward reluctantly. That some invisible elastic pulls you back to where you’ve just come from, so you’re never completely free, never gain momentum, one part of you is always turned the other way. We tried to balance in the space between those extremes, embracing new places and lives, holding on to things we learnt and people we loved in the previous ones.

So this weekend, we went on a road trip. Back to where we used to live, back to our circle of friends. Ana’s eyes had been sore the day before and I put some eye drops in for her. She patted my cheek and said: “You’re just like a real doctor, aren’t you!”. I thought to myself, this birthday better hurry up as she’s getting too cheeky for a two year old! On the way we picked up my cousin, who happens to be in the UK at the moment, for work. “This feels so normal”, she said to me, “I could get used to it”. Well, it is normal for a lot of people, I thought. It hasn’t been for us as we live so far away, but that doesn’t stop us recognising a good thing when we see one.

Ana’s birthday weekend was planned as a combination of things that are Cool for Children (big lunch with friends, cake, new toys, a visit to the big wheel, general mooching about) and things that are Good for Grown Ups (clubbing, a few cocktails, good company, some music long not listened to, a shock wave of memories). We talked to friends, almost feverishly, trying to catch up on everything since that last time we saw each other. How could I condense my daily experiences of playgroups, sport sessions, play dates, housework, home admin, puzzles and stories and baths and that beautiful boredom that comes with the luxury of watching your children grow up next to you, in your own home, rather than cared for by someone else, in a nursery? How could I describe to my friends that mix of happiness and loneliness that comes with always being with my two little mates but very little other human contact, especially adult? How could I explain days which are at the same time pure leisure (as we don’t have to get anywhere, there is no work, preschool is optional, we can always have a duvet day if we feel like it) and a frantic I-haven’t-sat-down-all-day business of nappies, cooking, laundry, hoovering, tidying up toys, wiping away tears, refereeing arguments, hugging and cuddling and laughing and occasionally, almost, crying?

But the friends, they get it. I don’t have to say very much but they get it. It’s the wisdom of friendships, you say just one thing but the friends, they already understand all of it. You give just one example but they take in the whole story. You start to explain but they’re already on your side. You start to say what happened next but they have already guessed it, they know it and they’re cheering for you. That’s how it works, with friendships like this. And you want to hear about their lives too, and because there are many of them and one of you, you get just a snippet from each – a little bit of work trouble here, a new boyfriend there, but you can gather how everyone is from how shiny or tired their eyes are, whether they talk with excitement or worry. You use your ears, and you use all your other senses, and they guide you more fully than mere conversation ever could. By the time you have spent an afternoon together, you have caught up, rejoined, and can now simply relax together.

(Here is the birthday girl, in our hotel, waiting for everyone else to get ready)

(And here is me, proud as punch!)

Now - for us, for this little group of grown up vagabonds who really don’t want to grow up all the way, we tend to relax on the dance floor. It’s all so familiar. We used to live on it. Sometimes I’m surprised that any of us managed to have jobs, children or any other sort of life at all given the amount of time we have spent on the dancefloor. See you on the dancefloor, we used to say to each other. And last Saturday night, we once again were, together, on the dance floor. Afterwards I sent a message to our friend who was the DJ and I asked him: How can we live without dancing like that ever again?

The following day, the birthday celebrations were over, the city was glowing in the sunshine but the shine had already gone out of my mood. I felt I had met myself again after a long time, and I really didn’t want to say goodbye. To the friends we spent the night with, and to me, that old me from those old times. Because I really miss being that person, but in my life now, there is no space to be that person any more. What defines my life these days is the safety of suburbia, the predictability of routine, the mildness of middle class choices, the ennui of repetition, the sleepiness of a provincial life.

Reluctantly we came back, on Sunday night. I could feel the elastic pulling me in the opposite direction. My children’s eyes lay on me with concern: why is mummy sad? Impossible to explain. Even grown ups sometimes struggle to understand the cycle of loss and gain that is always present in life: you lose something, you gain something else. You can never compare the two, because they are different. But sometimes, the fact that you can’t keep hold of both, can make you very sad indeed. I know that I have to let go of the past in order to grow, but sometimes the growing is so hard, I want to leave that to someone else while I just go dancing for just a bit longer.