Motherhood Archives • Page 2 of 23 • womanhood

The Garden is Overgrown

On May 11, 2018

It’s funny in a way.
Normally, I would have planned it just so.
Someone to nurture.
Someone to water.
While I was away.

But I guess in someways, I couldn’t offer it.
Couldn’t care enough for it.

So now we’re back.
And it’s over run.
Run a muck.

Creepers twirling.
Passion fruit vines, crushing the curry leaves.
Tomato-less tomato trees sprawling over the concrete.
Dried, dried leaves.
Dead as they droop.

And I look at them and am reminded.
Of my lack of desire to nurture.

Where I was once so attentive, we had herbs and chillies, alive and tomatoes ripening in the sun.

I’m now barren in a way.
Nothing to give.
Nothing to slay.

The Ultrasound

By karishma

On May 10, 2018

In Motherhood, Pregnancy, Woman To Woman

I just want to check your left ovary.
She says to me.
Her stick pushes and darts and my discomfort stays alight.

Her screen says so much to her. Blood here. Vessels there.
To me it says.
Empty.

I knew it yesterday.
I’ve know it for days.

This is a far cry from the sex I know.
I’m not allowed to have it for 6 weeks.
But that stick is akin to a sarcastic joke made to burn.

She keeps going.
Left right, in, out. Centre. Back.
I understand.
She’s doing her job.
Getting all the information.

Getting it down to 15 slides.
That I have miscarried.

That there is no life in my womb.
Just a teaspoon of blood.

I know this.
And yet.
I’m here.

Wondering why I’m letting her do her job.
So thoroughly.
When I need.
Out.

The Miscarriage

By karishma

On May 9, 2018

In Motherhood, Pregnancy, Woman To Woman

You left me yesterday sweetheart.
Or maybe you left me before.
But today, I woke up, and you weren’t in me anymore.
I could feel it.

Unusually light.
The lightness.

It was a dark day.
I don’t even know.
How I feel about it all.

The thing is.
I didn’t know you.
We chatted, but rarely.
But my box was ticked.
Two kids.
Done.

How presumptuous.
And now I wonder.
Was it the future I’ve lost that I’m sad about?
Your Daddy was the first to think of your soul.
Of your journey.
Not his attached to yours.
Purely yours.
He’s always been the selfless type.

Me?
Tears in the night.
Blood neatly contained.
Bed to bathroom to toilet to bed.

No need for reasons.
It’s just as it was always meant to be.
Except we didn’t know.
What was meant to be.

X
K

//

PS – If you’re my friend and you want to message me – please kindly, don’t send me a whatsapp or an email or a DM. To be honest, I find this kind of a conversation can only really happen in person and I’m sure the next time we catch up, you can flood me with your hugs. Just not the emoticon version. With so much love. Xx

Running

By karishma

On April 29, 2018

In Aware, Family, Kholo, Motherhood

I’ve been observing myself over the last year.
Trying to find a balance of self care and work.

When I ran a design agency, I never really cared enough about my health.
I was trying, but perhaps, also running.
Running to keep it going.
To get somewhere.

And I realise now.
I’ve done the same thing since having launched Kholo.

Running.
From the fear of not succeeding.

And now, I’m on an island.
Taking a break.
Away from my son.
Away from the every-day-grind.

Finally pausing.

And I can see what I’ve done to my body.
All over again.

With the running.

Aru got agitated. And maybe it was unrelated to my running.
But maybe it was related.

So I think this time around.
I’m going to take it slow.
More trust.
Less fear.

More time for meditation and walks and maybe some hip-hop.
More time to cook a meal.

And less panic time for Kholo.

X
K

Dearest Aru (Early November, 2017),

By karishma

On April 18, 2018

In Entrepreneurship, Family, Letters to Aru

I’ve been away from you for two weeks now and it has been painful. Every time I hear your cherry voice, I’m surprised that your tone isn’t angry at me for being away. It’s simply happy to hear me.

I want to find a way to bring you with me. To be together more, apart less.
But your daddy and I are particular about whom we choose to care for you.

I love you Aru. I love you deeply.

So I’m coming home with elephants and tigers and a heart full of you.

X
K

In our darkest hours

By karishma

On April 17, 2018

In Advice from the Oldies, Aware, Entrepreneurship, Faith?, Family, Fatherhood, Kholo, Money, Motherhood, The Sexes

We have nothing to give.
Burnt.
Crisp.
Hurting and hurt.

We just need each other to take from.
But what is there to take, when you are so empty.
So so empty.

And so we try.
To fill the cup again.

Slowly.
Surely.
Hopefully.

Through the darkness of the night.

Solace

By karishma

On April 16, 2018

In Advice from the Oldies, Aware, Family, Motherhood, Woman To Woman

There you were
Seeking all the right words
From all the wrong people

There is no solace.
In anyone.
Outside of you.

It is.
In you.

Grief.
And only for you to.
Heal.

Cold

By karishma

On June 28, 2017

In Advice from the Oldies, Aware, Family, Fatherhood, Motherhood, The Sexes

I caught up with a friend recently.
We are talking over lunch and coffees.

She was telling me about decades of love.
She told me of stretching out her arms.
Of seeking love from her man.
Of seeking touch in the night.

And she told me of the response.
Negative.
Nada.
Nill.

“It was like a slap in the face, Kish,” she told me.

Tears welled in my eyes.
And I realised.

I come from a community which shuns physical touch between men and women in public and maybe even doesn’t relish it in private either.
I’m extremely private, I don’t even feel comfortable holding hands with V in a street where no one knows us.
I’m wary of physical touch, especially if I’m stressed.
I don’t reach forward and hold his hand.
I don’t lean on him the way he does me.

I can’t explain it.

And when she said that.

I thought of Aru’s childhood.
How I lift him, cuddle him, love him, adore him.
I snuggle into him.
I can do this anywhere.
Nose to nose.
Cheek to cheek.
He knows.
It in his bones.
That his Maa adores him.
I tickle his toes and plant kisses on his forehead.
I rub his tummy.
I sneak under his t-shirt to rub his back.
I am a physical mum.
I get the most satisfaction from his touch.

And I realise.
Vivek probably had that kind of love from his mum.
This regardless abandon of physical love.
Skin to skin.

Touch.

And here I was.
Loving him.
Yet rejecting him.

And I cry now.

Because I’m trying.
But I will never make up for the million times I might have rejected him.
Made him feel unloved.

Because my finger tips failed him.
My cheeks failed his love.
My arms failed his warmth.
My language didn’t recognise his.

And I try now.
More than ever.

To undo a stigma of touch.
To undo lessons learnt.

To love.
With reckless abandon.

As a child, innocent to norms, rules and expectations.

X
K

Dear Aru (early May, 2017)

By karishma

On June 26, 2017

In Aware, Letters to Aru, Motherhood, The Sexes

Hey Poochie,
I don’t know where the mind goes.
How to tame it.
Whether it should be tamed or understood.

But for you.
I try to be good.
Even if my mind is pulling me elsewhere.

But what is good?
Who defines and decides that?

One day, your eyebrows might raise.
As your start to unravel your maa.
As you start to know the world is round and
People do things differently to good.

And I guess.
I want to be good for you.
So you know it’s possible.
But I’m learning now.

That maybe it’s not.
Not all the time, for everything anyway.

So I guess.
If I can be accepting of you.
Then perhaps I’ve taught you a thing or two.
About what I need for us when it comes to me.

X
K

Schooled

By karishma

On May 23, 2017

In Aware, Motherhood, People & Land, The Sexes, Woman To Woman

I’d just like to take a moment.
To thank my husband Vivek.
For preventing me from becoming a man-hater.
For listening to my distaste in men, distrust in men, disgust even, in men.

And then pausing, to give me the potential other side of the story.
For reminding me that I married someone very similar to these men I so despise.

It’s simply that.
We’ve travelled a journey which has changed him and I.

And men are often whom they are,
Because they weren’t educated otherwise.

So.
MY WOMEN IN THE HOUSE.
PLEASE TAKE ON THIS ROLE.

Teach a man.
He doesn’t own you.
He doesn’t own your money.
He doesn’t own the surnames of your children.
He doesn’t own the style of your skirt.
He doesn’t own the sway of your hips.
He doesn’t own the food you have when you go out to dinner.
He doesn’t own your career.
He doesn’t own the relationships you have with your friends and family.
He doesn’t own the jewels you buy, or those that he gifts you.
He doesn’t own the right to tell you when to be home.
He doesn’t own a single inch of you.
Not an inch.

And it’s your role, to lock this shit into place.

To cause an uproar.

To fight the fight, be it little or large.

Stand up for what means something to you.

Live a life on your terms and not his.
Because if you keep playing the victim,
Don’t you dare go blaming a wasted life on him.

X
K

womanhood

a work in progress

Category: Motherhood (Page 2 of 23)

The Garden is Overgrown

The Ultrasound

The Miscarriage

Running

Dearest Aru (Early November, 2017),

In our darkest hours

Solace

Cold

Dear Aru (early May, 2017)

Schooled

Hi, I’m Karishma

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