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A reflection on early spring, the inelegant sacrifices that come with parenting, and the many small things mothers find themselves worrying about.
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“What is something that you think is both elegant and risky?” I ask.
“Elegant but risky?! … in what context?”
“It doesn’t really matter … just tell me what comes to mind when I say elegant but risky.”
“Hmmm …”
It is a morning in March and Gearóid and I are driving the children to school. There is a light, minty layer of frost covering the fields.
“Well… maybe something like sailing — sailing solo around the world?
Or paragliding? … that’s elegant but definitely risky …
Free climbing could be another one…”
I snort-laugh, inelegantly.
“What?” he asks, pretending to be wounded by my laughing.
“Sorry, sorry … I’m laughing at myself,” I explain.
“It’s just that I have been trying to think of examples of things that are elegant but risky all morning. And … well … all of my answers are just so different to yours – I wonder what it says about each of us.”
“What did you come up with …” he asks.
We pull up to the front of the university beside our studio, and I climb out of the car.
“I’ll tell you later,” I say.
I pull open the back car door and kiss the children goodbye.
“Have a nice day at school,” I say. “And remember the rules …”
“Have fun, listen, be kind,” they parrot back at me before I can speak.
“A vintage 60s Porsche 911!” Gearóid interjects from the front of the car. “Very elegant … but definitely a risky buy.”
“True” I concur.
I watch as he drives away in our beloved old, increasingly unreliable family car with its familiar little puff of smoke and odd engine noises – our car with its three child seats, roof racks, the large boot forever packed with sandy wellies, fleeces, raincoats, fishing rods, buckets, spades, scooters … covered in dog hair. Less a car and more of a travelling shed.
“A vintage 60s Porsche 911,” I smile.
_
I cross the road and walk up through the line of great bare, leafless old trees that line the front driveway of the university.
I think about the much cooler two-seater van that we used to drive around in before children. And how we are in the process of trading our current car in for the ultimate safe, sensible family car – a seven-seater "family van".
When you are the parent of three young children, it feels like there are few choices on the table that are elegant. Though there are plenty of moments of unpredictability, volatility and precariousness.
We never need to knowingly choose the risky option. Our youngest, a boy, is still a toddler. I feel like we have enough organic risk in our lives – we have that one covered.
The frost on the grass is melting into a soggy morning dew. At the top of the road I walk by the front door of the university.
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Every morning I stop here and pause by the bright white petals of the flowering winter cherry. The white cherry petals look so chic against the dark, bare branches of the tree, without any leaves crowding out the silhouette.
The cherry tree is the only tree that has burst into life. All the other trees around are still in dormant winter mode.
I feel like if I lean into the cherry tree and listen hard enough, the cherry tree would say, “What are you all waiting for?! – I’ll go first so … someone needs to get this party started.” Like the first brave dancer on an otherwise empty dancefloor. The music has started, the DJ is playing, the lights are flashing. The Winter cherry tree is throwing shapes on the dancefloor while everyone else waits for the comfort of the crowd and the more sensible predictability of late spring.
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Why do some trees flower before they come into leaf? I have been wondering all week as I walk past this cherry tree each morning.
I have been reading about it too. It’s an elegant but risky strategy, blooming in early March.
There are some advantages for plants and trees in blooming early – early blooms can avail of the extra light before the leaves of other trees crowd out the canopy, and they can attract the earliest pollinators as well as benefit from the energy stored in the tree over winter.
But risks abound when flowering too early. I actually worry about the Winter cherry tree. I know about the risk of a false Spring in early March. We could still have a night of very hard frost, hailstones are common, we can get strong stormy winds. Likely, the pollinators will not come out in time.
I pluck off a small low branch off the cherry tree and bring it with me, as if I can somehow care for it better indoors. I know this is not how it really works.
_
The sun is rising this week around 7 and it is fully daylight when I arrive at the studio. I arrive first and unlock the door. I notice that I don’t need to turn the lights on in the morning at all this week.
I add fresh water to a vase and place the cherry tree branch in the vase on the central table inside the window.
I turn on my computer and begin answering some emails while I wait for the others to arrive.
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Later on, over our coffee break, Gearóid asks me, “So what were your ideas of things that are both elegant and risky?”
“Oh,” I smile, “I laughed because I realised your responses were all about brave solo adventure sports and mine were all very... mammy-ish"
“Like ... I thought of heading out for a walk and not bringing raincoats for everyone … high risk! I realised that I think that all tall glasses with long stems – like wine glasses or fancy cocktail glasses... Yes, they are elegant... but you want a low centre of gravity, or it’s just too risky …”
“Risky! Very risky,” Gearóid laughs in agreement. “Will definitely get knocked over onto your dinner by a child.”
“And what else?” he pushes
“Thin high heels and especially non-grippy high heel shoes – they are the shoe equivalent of the wine glasses", I reflect. "That high centre of gravity - the risk of slipping over - You can’t run in them. You can’t risk slipping while carrying a small child …”
Gearóid nods and smiles.
“Oh, and I thought of small handbags. Like … id like a small handbag but if my handbag is small, that means that I definitely don’t have all the stuff I need with me – like nappies and wipes and spare clothes for whoever has been most recently toilet trained – and it will be the very day I don’t have them that we need them … You know, it’s just not worth the risk. I like a small bag, but I’d rather have a big bag and ... be prepared.”
“And what did I say was elegant but risky?” he asks.
“Am…. you said ... paragliding, free climbing, solo sailing and a vintage 60s Porsche 911"
Later that evening I go out for a solo “fast walk”. I wear a tatty old fleece, but not my boring raincoat.
Reckless, but so chic. My mother calls, and we chat as I walk.
After our call finishes I take a pair of clippers from my pocket. “Right” I think to myself, “let’s get this party started.” I rummage in the hedgerow and snip some willow, winter cherry, and hazel catkins to bring home with me.