thoughts

Day 13 : Thoughts on our connection

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

The other day I wore my trousers from my trip to Ghana when I was 17, and I thought about my mum and how I miss her.

Then, I wore a hairband that my friend recently gifted me and thought of her and our coffee date conversations.

I ate a bagel and my husband came to mind, because there was a point where the kids associated bagels with daddy, and it was one of the few things I could convince them to eat.

Tonight I made a salad, and thought about my stay at grandparents house when I was 16, and how I watched the way they loved each other after decades… before I really understood how much work a relationship needs to get there.

I said goodbye to my dad, and thought about how grateful I am that he exists.

And I wrote some bits down… in-between the dishes and calls for mummy.

When I think about these things as  individual moments, they’re just parts of our day and life… but then, piecing them together, the picture changes. We are shaped by the experiences we have, but more than that, the legacy of those who we love, or even those we don’t, stays with us, every single interaction stored somewhere… ready to be drawn on when needed.

The legacy of my grandparents is far bigger than making salad with me one summer, and yet, it’s there… as part of their story interwoven with mine.

The legacy of my mother, linked to our trip to Ghana, triggered by my bright yellow trousers.

The story of my friendship, held in part, in a hairband that makes it more than just a piece of cloth.

The growth of my children, who love a daddy bagel but no longer demand one as regularly as they once did.

That lady at the park

The old man on the school run

The bus driver who waved to my kids as he drove past

The sweet little boy who doubled back to ask my son a question

The neighbour who drives us places to let our dogs run and play

Every person we’ve bumped into … every single random comment from a stranger… every single interaction we’ve ever had. Every. Single. One. All stored.

It makes me think about my kids, and their sponge brains… and how easy it is for them to interpret all these things in such core ways.

I used to hate when people would comment “ahh you’ve got your hands full” in front of my kids, no matter what a mess we looked like! Then I realised, rather than pretend like it hadn’t happened, I had the power to change that interaction… and so I started saying to my kids “look my hands ARE so full!” while I held them all and fumbled… “and so is my heart” I’d end with. It made a huge difference.

When I look at our lives, interwoven link this, I am filled with hope and sadness and rage at the world. I am learning, in new ways that rather than push those away or just pick one, that I CAN sit with all of these at once, and that it’s okay to just feel them and do nothing yet. That’ll come.

Until tomorrow,

With love, Rohana x

From April to August; An Unplanned Break from Blogging

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

My son is currently asleep for his daily nap and I have a To-Do List as long as my arm but today, after months away, I wanted to blog. I have thought so much about why I stopped, why I lost it on my list of priorities and how I miss typing away and sharing my life.

I lost touch with a lot of things over the last few months, adjusting to life with Harrison home, falling pregnant and facing the parenting struggles (and adventures) that come with having a 2 year old. The days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, where I chose to watch useless television or even worse, scroll my Facebook and Instagram feeds, pretending that it was a good use of my time! How easy it is to get sucked into wasting precious minutes mindlessly on these apps. I love the ability to share and connect, but not the ease with which we are trapped into staying on the platform longer and longer.

Turning off my phone, or at least my internet recently has helped, maybe that is why I have found my way back to the keyboard. Or perhaps it was the gentle push from my mother this weekend, reminding me that writing has been a great way to care for myself, express and evaluate, let go of emotions and heal from experiences. If I want to express myself, share my life constructively, and unpack the emotional backpack I am carrying, writing is a much better idea that Facebook scrolling isn’t it?  So here we are, hopefully this time for a long time.

I won’t attempt to relieve all that has gone on since April, but I will fill in all the important bits, at least the big ones; like my little brother moving to Australia, my best friend in Scotland moving away for a year, and TP losing his best buddy (her daughter). My anxiety over TPs birth trauma made an appearance (which I am slowly trying to heal) while we were on our first ever family holiday, and we have had members of both sides of the family come to visit. TPs speech is incredible now, and I learned that even in Scotland, a paddling pool or variation of one is an asset on the hot days. H bought a bike and is using it, and I am driving around a lot more comfortable, albeit locally. We have also begun to really enjoy cooking from scratch and learning how to love the kitchen. The rest, well it’s history, but the future is still waiting, holding stories and laughter and love for us to share.

You might have also caught that I am pregnant – yep! – 25 weeks currently, and a big part of the reason I stopped writing. There were a few weeks in the first trimester I walked around permanently holding either a sick bowl or bag, and crying because I wasn’t able to do much else. But it passed, after a lot of trial and error I found a couple of pregnancy sickness tricks to keep it at bay (another post about this will come) and finally we are over it (mostly!).

Apart from that tiny detail, my first born, Theo Prana turned 2 this July, making me officially the mum of a wild toddler who is the biggest light in my life but also makes me want to curl up under the blanket with a tub of ice-cream and hide. Nobody can prepare you for parenthood and each stage has its challenges, but toddlerhood is by far the most testing. That said, we are working on finding the balance, and thankfully H is very on board with a lot of the peaceful parenting ideas I propose, so we are a team rather than giving TP mixed signals by being confused ourselves.

We also started cloth nappies, and reusable wipes, and as a family (sometimes actually led more by H than myself) trying to cut down our plastic consumption and be less wasteful. This has been an amazing development for us because we both feel like as TP gets older and understands more, we want him to know we did our best for the planet, and we didn’t stay ignorant. It is hard, sometimes we forget, sometimes even though we remember, we cannot afford the ‘planet friendly’ options, but every little bit we do makes a difference in the big picture, like the butterfly who’s wings flapping could be felt across the earth, each step we make, is a step forward.

Oh and lastly, we are moving house! Still a little while to go, so I won’t share much on it yet, but I guess that is also kind of a big reason I have felt like life is so busy, because we have had a few really major things to adjust to. All good thankfully and I am so grateful for that.

Until the next time, 

XOXO

R