Wild whisperings
When I became a mother I stopped jumping off bridges and climbing tall trees. My world became sleep times, healthy snacks and managing screen time. I planned for my children and eagerly awaited their births. After they were born, I loved them deeply but I also wanted to retain the wild aspects of myself that made me feel happy and excited to be alive.
In my heart I was still the woman who travelled the world alone and walked across Spain on the Camino de Santiago. I kept my wild inclinations under wraps as I went about changing nappies and obsessing over sleep schedules. I thought that the adventurer in me died with the birth of my children because I could no longer board a plane to Europe or paint for hours.
I also believed I shouldn’t want for anything more than my children, as if yearning for my creative practices made me a bad mother. My shameful secret was that I wished I could be both a mother and a woman of my own. It took me years to realise that wildness was a state of mind that I could cultivate in the here and now.
The suppression of my natural instincts in the quest to be a good mother came with
