5 A.M.
I fumble through the kitchen searching for the button that turns on the light under the microwave. The one that doesn’t shock the darkness out of me. The house is still and quiet.
Start the coffee. Open the laptop. Light the candle that smells of evergreens.
I tuck my favorite pillow behind my back, the one my mom made with the fabric my sister sent. I stuffed it and sewed the gap poorly by hand with thread too delicate for the hardy material. Now I find white fluff on the floor post pillow fights with the kids. I pull the afghan I knit (more proficiently sewn than the pillow) over my legs and shiver. That moment where the blanket leaves me colder, just before it warms me always seems unfair. My stomach growls and my eyes ache. I’ll feed the hunger looking for more than caffeine with a black cup of coffee and then another. It’s five a.m.
I read a magazine in the subtle glow of all my mornings. A literary publication to which I recently subscribed. The authors speak directly to me. As I read, I find my curled hand absently resting on my chest, absorbing connection with storyteller wisdom. Or maybe just with humanity. It’s been a lonely year. It seems if I read intently enough, their words will somehow become part of my story. The deaths and the regrets and the lonelinesses and the publications.
A stressful and exciting pull comes from deep within my abdomen. Start typing something now! I place a hand on my belly with the gentle but firm shhh of a mother and tell her, “It’s ok, we’re reading now.”
The magazine slaps the table in conclusion. An unruly corner won’t flatten, proof it was an issue well loved. I stare out the window, wondering what to do next. It’s almost always easier to be a reader than a writer.
I don’t know yet what kind of writer I am. The journals I filled over the last twenty-five years gifted me discipline, but now that the words flee the private confines of bound pages, what is worthy of telling?
The muscles in my midsection hold tight. Never flat enough to be considered skinny. I puff out the round, tender space just below my breasts aggressively to compensate for the decades of inner and outer fat shaming. At thirty-five, my belly and I retrain the voices telling us to hate our inadequacies. I allow it to kiss the tops of my thighs ever so slightly.
It threatens to twitch and tighten again and again because we don’t feel good enough in this moment. Not as a writer. Not as a mother. Not as a woman. I dig my fingers into the soft flesh in hopes of providing the physical sensation the muscles try to achieve. It feels oddly invigorating. Hands pressed deep into the skin folds, I write what feels alive. Even if what’s alive is belly fat.
I pull the bracelets off my left wrist because they knock the edge of the laptop. It’s the only time they leave my body. Jewel and earth tones collide, each with a story. Only three because the other two that adorned my arm for years were pulled apart by baby curiosities. I’m sure there are more casualties coming. These bracelets hold reminders of my best friend’s pregnancy, the sun-soaked red rocks of Sedona, AZ, and falling into new friendship with a dear, sweet soul. They live on a body that hasn’t traveled or sat with friends for eleven months. I’m not sure if they bring me comfort or sadness.
Fourth gulp of coffee. Stare absently at the dancing flame.
The hoofed silhouettes in the shadowy yard startle me. A head with antlers freezes, eyes aglow. A thud from the crib tells me children stir. I want to exist in this darkness forever. Where I can be alone and alive, candles and bracelets and coffee and belly fat my only dependents.
The week has been long and tiring, and it’s only Tuesday. Last week was tiring too. Two small children in a pandemic are undeniably exhausting. My job as a stay-at-home mom always hung in the balance, but part-time work, pre-school, and numerous pre-Covid activities kept the scales from tipping. Supposedly when the protocols of quarantine were determined, my life shouldn’t have changed. Aside from the work I create for myself, parenthood is my only job. I tell myself this when I want to feel shame. Out in the wild world there are working moms, single moms, people who desperately want to be moms, and moms who have lost. There are older moms with grown kids they can’t see sitting alone in their homes waiting for video calls with grandchildren.
I hold a strange and dubious comfort in my struggle not being unique. Mother’s everywhere holding homes and little lives together with only awkward and erroneous tools. Leaning into my fluff seeping pillow, I can’t help but feel held by its empathetic flaws. Who else is up right now trying to mend their hearts before their kids rise?
6:06. I attempt to puppet master time with another pour.
I emotionally concede to my dwindling dawn knowing the sitter (who we hired for my deteriorating sanity) will come. I will write again later. I decided a few months back that I am in fact a writer. And writers write while they pay someone to watch their children. Right?
It won’t be the same though. Nothing feels like five a.m.
I imagine with guilty undertones what it would feel like to not take care of my kids for a whole week. To retreat and write until there is not a word left in my brain. Like the passionate and innocent scribbles in my journal from 2011, whose hinges couldn’t contain the forces of me.
On one page I wrote the words “I surrender,” twenty-six times.
On another, I wrote half of a page quoting Thich Nhat Hanh.
I pasted one page with photos of a friend of ten years who taught me it was ok to let go of things that no longer serve me. Including ten-year-old friendships.
Later, a description of a day in Hattiesburg, MS in the autumn. Acorns falling, smoky fires, and wooden rocking chairs on an old cabin porch.
On the last page: February 29, 2012
On another cold, damp day, I choose to put this journal to rest. My growth has burst the seams of its binding. All I have done is as much as the pages can hold. Thank you for the gift of writing.
Signing off. Love, B
That was three years before I would meet my first child. And nine before I would receive my first and so far only paycheck of twenty dollars for an essay I got published recently on periods. The shedding of the lining of the uterus, that is. Not the mark that ends this sentence. I wonder who I was thanking back then for the gift of the written word.
The bluing sky tells me we’re almost done.
I love being a mother. And there is an alternate reality where I would have been successful bearing witness only to myself. But I will show up today. I always do. They’ll invite me into their childlike world. Often, I’ll resist. I’ll push back and invite them into my world with a similar result. Occasionally, we find a sweet spot where we meet in between our reluctances. Those days seem impossibly simple.
Last sip. Blow out the flame.
I love the smell of the swirling smoke. I tell my belly we did valuable work. Connecting the pieces that are alive and uniting them with the parts that still feel unworthy. She tightens habitually with the rising sun.
Tap the light. Fold the blanket delicately with love. The one you made with your own two hands.
I sit with my words, wondering what we accomplished. I can’t bring myself to fold the screen down to meet its other half. I want my work to be seen. I look down into my empty cup for a pep talk. But indistinct memories of being young and undesirable surface. I hold my belly fat aggressively with both hands now. I want us to be enough.
Yellow and orange linger above the treetops. A little voice summons for “mommy.”
The familiar rhythmic thump above the round of my belly quickens. It’s scary. Starting the day. Sharing the words. Leaving the safety of five a.m. But we are alive.
Submit.
-Becca Tillinghast
Becca Tillinghast (She/Her) is a writer, a yoga instructor, and a knitter of all the yarn. She lives in Nashville, TN with her two wild and incredible children and her ever supportive partner. Her work can be found on Scary Mommy and HerStry exploring the challenges of parenting and the vulnerability of this messy and beautiful life.