Letters to my daughters (February): SOURCE

My darling girl

I watch you sing, and it makes my heart burst.  You can’t help yourself but move from one moment to the next in song: unfettered, unaware, absorbed. It’s as if your very source is let out with each note – moving through you, body and soul.

I think I used to be a bit like that. I have wondered whether my mother saw it in me too. I expect so – she knew how vital singing was to me. Is to me. And I shared that lifeblood with others when I sang on stage: it was physical, whole, visceral. It was in me, not ‘me’. It was moving through me – much like I see it move through you too. A river of sound. 

And I have wondered too whether I instilled that source of energy in you. Equally, I’ve worried that I haven’t done enough to model living a musical life. (Oh the paradox of parenthood!) Is this genetic; our code running through us like Brighton rock? Where or how do we find our source? Is it in our nature, or is it thanks to what we experience?

What is clear is that whatever the origin, singing gives you LIFE. It lets you feel, and the contorted expressions you share on your putty-like face are just a wonder. You are an expressive little bean. And your whole person hums with that energy, that source, that current.

I have been feeling so torn recently when I’m with you: the slow and endless separation has begun. No longer do you cling to me or settle into my hugs. Instead, you often wriggle free; better things to get on with. And when you sing, you don’t need me to join you – it is not participatory or collaborative – its personal, it’s yours. You’re on your own, and you’re just fine.

The river has split; the pulse distributed.

But I’ve done enough. You have found what energises you – and you are in it, with it, shaping it. It is neither mine nor something I can be proud of producing – it is your voice, your song, your expression now.  You don’t need me like you did – you are finding your source and blossoming with it at your root.

I can’t ignore that I still hold a grudge that my own parents did not support or encourage the singer in me. Was that why I lacked the confidence to perform professionally and, sharp-elbowed, make my way towards being a successful musician?

Maybe that’s unfair. Music, singing, is still my source. I can feel it when I sing to you every night, however repetitive I might sound to you (I do know more than four songs, by the way). I felt it when I went to that new choir last week; in fact, I came home and wept at the joy of being able to sing with others after so long. I wept into that hole chipped away by exhausted parent, pandemic isolation, feeling out of touch.

But I was heartbroken when you and your sister watched a video of me on Youtube - only to be perplexed and confused: “That’s not Mummy!” It was uncomfortable to witness you see a version of me that you didn‘t recognise.

Maybe it’s time I reclaim my own sense of self – remind myself of my source, the thing that makes me absolutely and wonderfully me. I don’t want to be a mum who lives for the fire in her children’s bellies – and exists solely to feed that fire. That would be a trick, missed. I will watch you, and will you on, and cheer as loud as you want me to from the side-lines. But I’m not going to live for you or feel alive because of you.

I want you to know about the spark inside me too. I want you to feel my source, my energy, when I sing – not because I’m singing you to sleep or getting excited about the latest Disney songs (which will definitely happen too). I want you to say about me: ‘I knew her best, she was at her best, when she opened her mouth to sing’.

Maybe my parent’s missed trick then, was not not supporting my energy, my source, but failing to nurture their own. (Ooh. That feels tremendous!) Was it their lack of energy towards doing the things that made them shudder and sparkle and quake with life, that left me feeling that it wasn’t worth pursuing my own desires? Did they forget themselves – and in doing so, pre-occupied, forget me and my sisters too?

As you grow, as you need me less, I have a chance to reclaim some of that ground – or at least reimagine it now that I am here – a mother to you and your sister. You have not taken anything away from me, no chances have been lost. Instead, I am renewed, re-sourced, re-energised. I am different, but that source that runs through you - it runs through me too. I recognise and love it in you because I recognise and love it in myself.

And now my darling, as I watch you light up, your source a-glow, I know it’s time for me to sing too.

Your loving Mama x