Welcome to Tiny Thoughts, a place where I share smaller musings. Unlike my essays, which I send out to all subscribers, Tiny Thoughts will become a regular feature for paid subscribers only – but for now, enjoy this one for free. As always, if you like what you read, please like/share/comment to help support my work. And if you haven’t already subscribed, please give the link below a little click.
Hats
When I was in primary school, the girls wore straw boaters in the summer, which gave off a sweet rotting smell if they ever got wet. This happened often, given I went to school in England. These hats were stiff like bedpans, with a cornflower-blue ribbon around the crown and an elastic strap that looped under your chin. On my final day of primary school, I walked down the grand driveway that separated the school from the road and threw this boater onto the ground. Then I stamped on it again and again and again until its hard shell was battered into a straw pancake. My mother did not intervene, but afterwards said something like, ‘Well, that’s a shame.’ Then she made me pick up the sad mess that remained so I could put it all in a bin. To this day, I feel no remorse. I really hated that hat. And, at times, I really hated that school.
My oldest child starts school in five days. It is a major milestone for him. The beginning of almost everything. The slow shaping of his future. And I look at him, just four years old, still so small, smaller than most of his peers, and I wonder, is he ready for this everything?
Then I think, am I?
These life transitions creep up on you. For four years, I’ve known school was coming, and yet here we now are. When I see my son, I see the baby that made me a mother and I find myself in disbelief at time’s great trick. The desire to hold dearly onto everything exactly as it is, while also feeling excited for the infinite possibilities ahead.
Being seen
The year I gave birth to my oldest son was the year that Game Of Thrones came to an end. I was hooked on the show, as millions were. So I was rather thrilled that, while sitting with my husband in Le Pain Quotidien on Marylebone High Street in April 2019 – one month before the final GoT episode aired and one month before my son’s own season premiere – Carice van Houten, aka Melisandre the Red Witch, walked into that same cafe.
My husband, who hadn’t watched a single episode of the show, said, ‘Don’t turn around just yet, but Guy Pearce is sitting behind you.’ And of course I knew who Guy Pearce was – Memento! Priscilla! Neighbours, for god sake – but when I turned around it was Carice van Houten (his wife) who was the real star presence.
At that point, I was approaching nine months pregnant. My bump was gargantuan, overwhelming my 5ft 2in frame. And yet despite some discomfort, I enjoyed this heft. I took up space unapologetically and would sit with my legs wide open, interested in comfort, not elegance. It is probably the only time in my life when I felt like I truly existed outside the rules of attraction, where I was excused from diet culture and liberated from the male gaze.
My husband needed to prepare for a meeting, so I heaved myself upright and said goodbye. Then I squeezed through the gap between my table and that of the actors. I felt too intimidated to make eye contact, though I desperately wanted to praise her. So it was only later, when I saw my husband back at home, that he mentioned they had noticed me too. That as I’d passed, Carice van Houten had shown eye-widening surprise at this huge bump that had almost stroked her shoulder. It’s clear her reaction was not offensive, nor was it interpreted as such. I genuinely believe that it was simply some kind of marvel at the transformational magic of pregnancy. The mad wonder of it all.
And coming from a woman who had seen dragons, I took that as a compliment indeed.
***
That moment popped into my mind four days ago when I had an unexpected conversation with my four-year-old son in the bathroom.
‘Why are your legs like that there?’ he said.
‘Like what, sweetie?’
‘Like that,’ he said, squeezing his thighs. ‘So fat.’
He dropped the word ‘fat’ like an anchor, unaware of how it pulled me down.
‘Oh,’ I said, as indifferently as I could. ‘I see.’
It was as if he’d never looked objectively at my legs before. Perhaps because, for a long time, it has felt like we were two parts of the same being. Or that, to him, I was not so much my own independent person as an amorphous mother creature – a primal force shapeshifting around him, transcending matter to provide comfort, protection and love. But he has grown so much this summer and I have noticed a change – the way he now sees me, scrutinises me. The way we are very slowly separating. He is trying to understand the world – who and what I am is another part of it.
But still. The word ‘fat’ stung. And I am ashamed to admit that. I know politically I should be above such things. But that’s the truth. It opened old wounds. Of all my body, my thighs have been the part I’ve struggled to like. I have written before about my relationship with my body – especially my postpartum body – and my relationship with food. The issue of my body is not neutral territory. It is rocky ground, one that I have worked hard over the years to make habitable. I do not think ‘fat’ is bad. I don’t want him to think that either. But the word is loaded. For many women, the pressure to make ourselves smaller hangs heavy in our atmosphere.
I said to my son:
‘My legs are like that because all bodies are different. Some are larger, some are smaller. Some have more fat than others. So that’s just how my legs are. Other people will have different legs.’
He nodded. His silence a show of satisfaction with the answer.
However, two days later, he said:
‘I like bodies that are nice.’
And I thought, oh crap, here we go again.
‘What do you think makes a body nice?’ I asked nervously.
‘One that has a smiley face,’ he said.
And – briefly – I relaxed again. Though I’m sure with the start of school, this is only just the beginning of conversations like these.
Gravity
The pale moon was visible against the morning’s blue sky when my son and I set off for the Science Museum yesterday. So when we reached our destination and saw a small piece of it right there in a box, my son’s face widened in awe.
‘Is that really from the moon?’ he asked, his face pressed against the glass.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ Which sounds glib, but I meant it.
We wandered around the exhibition – staring up at a glowing model of the sun suspended from the ceiling, its colour changing slowly so it morphed into the planets – tempestuous Jupiter, all orange and brown, the familiar blue and green of our own lush planet… Then we went to the museum’s IMAX cinema to see a 3D screening of Antarctica – the BBC Earth documentary narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch. I found myself welling up several times, though my tears were thankfully hidden by my 3D glasses, as the actor’s rich voice escorted us underwater and over ice to learn more about this mysterious continent and the extraordinary beauty of our one precious world.
It was a special day.
But not all this summer has felt so sweet. It has been a trapeze act juggling work and childcare and holidays and other people’s schedules and needs. And yet, every day, another stupid meme on Instagram reminds me how few summers you truly get with your kids and not to wish time away. But not all moments can be joyful. Nothing – even your heart’s desire – feels magical all the time. And so in the less charming moments, I have longed for alone time – to sleep, to think, to write. I have bristled with frustration in its absence.
But here I now am, after weeks in the whirlwind, alone for a few hours. And still, a gravitational pull binds me to my children no matter where they are. Our family its own mini solar system. Fiery suns, stormy planets and all. I wish we had infinity. But we only have the now. And while I won’t feel guilty for writing, or for craving my own space, I shall miss my son when he starts school. But it is his time. I cannot hold him back.
Definitely giving it a reas ☝🏻👀
It’s totally wild the effect one word, three letters, has on us. I’m 15 years older than my youngest sister and when she hit 5ish, she started telling me I was fat. The visceral reaction in my soul, even knowing she didn’t fully understand what the word meant and she had probably just heard it around school.