Fledgling
Photo Courtesy | Lucy Beckley
BY LUCY BECKLEY
The buzzard and her two fledglings soar overhead. I see them high up in the distance as I drive down the lane.
I’m coming back home from a long and difficult day. Too much caffeine and an incredibly early start means that I’m jumpy and anxious, chewing on the bottom of my lip and clenching my shoulders. My coffee-stained mind is fraying with all the things I need to do, spools and threads threaten to unravel and tangle as I drive. The many words I need to write for my Masters, the washing from the beginning of the week that still needs to be folded, the groceries that I need to buy and the freelance work that I have yet to complete, all tasks vying for my attention before I pick up the kids from school in just under an hour. The daily riff of the to-do list whirrs on repeat in my head: relentless, repetitive and oh-so monotonous. It’s the silent screaming white noise of mothering that I attempt to drown out and mask with a smile when someone asks me ‘How’s your day been?’. That invisible, unacknowledged mental load that all mothers carry and bear. The one no-one really talks about.
The shadows of the three birds swooping low over the car draws my attention back to the road and stops my unravelling thoughts. I peer up, craning my neck, trying to work out where they have gone. And then I catch sight of them circling high above. I don’t really have the time to do this, yet I find that I’ve stopped the car in the middle of the road. We live in the middle of the countryside and this particular lane is rarely busy. The most amount of traffic you’ll ever get is a herd of cows being moved between fields by the farmers or being stuck behind a tractor while it meanders through the squiggly hedgerow-lined lanes.
My fizzing, glitching brain settles for a moment as I get out of the car and watch the birds above me.
The mother is calm and certain in flight. Her two fledglings follow, one less confident than the other, trailing slightly behind. She’s teaching them how to hunt. I watch in awe, as they circle above the field, scouting out the land that lies far below them for prey. Discerning, observing and then diving with pure precision, eyes on the prize. The mother’s poise and ease seems so natural. So perfect.
Poised, calm, confident.
All the things I do not feel at that very moment.
The to-do list threads still flap and fly around me furiously. But I refuse to move myself from watching these majestic birds fly in unison. I want to hold this moment in mind for a little longer. The mother is quick to assist both of them, guiding them and rounding them up. Constantly teaching and showing them how to do it.
As I enter my eighth year of being a parent, the fabric of my pre-parent self is worn and threadbare. The person who I was before is now clothed in a baggy outline and the mother who I thought I would be, is completely different to the one that I am.
I look back now at that dreadfully smug not-yet-parent, the one who thought she had it all worked out, and I smile wryly. Wishing I could give my past self a huge hug and kiss. Long before becoming pregnant, I had already formed the perfect version of ‘mother’ in my mind and projected this ridiculous and unattainable ideal of what my mothering would look like and how my partner and I would raise our children. How I would do it so differently to others. How I would read the books, do the courses and that my own (very young and naive) self-assurance and confidence in my abilities would see me through. I would be like the buzzard Mum: poised, calm, confident.
How wrong I was.
For all my preparation, studying hypnobirthing and mindful parenting techniques, reading the baby bibles of the time, following the latest parenting trends, tracing the charts and recording the naps and feeds, there was nothing that could have prepared me for the actual reality of becoming a mother. My projected version of motherhood that I had been conditioned to aspire to, the one that I thought I could so easily mould myself into or teach myself to be, simply did not exist.
Mothering has been a process of unlearning for me. A huge lesson in patience, resilience and acceptance. A journey with many false starts, judders and stutters, with repeated experiments and many failed attempts to navigate the wild seas and dark nights of mothering.
Eight years down the line and with the murky milky misty haze of sleep deprivation edging ever more behind me, I find that I am still very much a fledgling mother. That no matter how many parenting years I have under my belt, each day I am still learning and unlearning. That what worked with one child, doesn’t necessarily work for the other, and that with every experience, each child is oh-so very different.
My eyes are drawn back to the birds, watching as they begin to go their separate ways. The littlest one that seemed uncertain and unsure starts to venture off on its own, finding its own way. The mother holds back a little, watching as her two offspring head out on their own, navigating the sky on their own terms and in their own time. I smile.
As I hop back into the car, I take a breath determined to drown out the white noise of my to-do list for a little bit longer. The washing can most certainly wait.
I want to take this moment to linger in the awe of how nature is the best teacher, how grounding myself in the moment, stops my shoulders from hunching and stills my mind.
Because ultimately, there is no right or wrong way, it’s just a matter of finding your own way.
LUCY BECKLEY is a writer, wanderer and wonderer. She writes poetry, essays, fiction and non-fiction. Her writing explores the beauty and joy in the unseen and seemingly ordinary. Originally from London, she's lived and worked in the UK, Germany and Portugal and has recently moved back to the UK to the middle of the Cornish countryside. Her writing and poetry has appeared in a range of independent magazines and books. She is currently working on a novel and her first collection of poetry. Visit www.lucybeckley.com to connect.