Some of my favourite stories contain an uncontested truth we hold about motherhood: Mothers are at their best when they are well and whole. Broken mothers, mothers whose pathologies loom large in their lives and, by extension, the lives of their families, are bad news. They lead to fractured adolescence (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants),… Read More Motherhood and Madness
I come from a long line of women who get shit done. My mother’s mother, Emma, was a force unto herself. After her husband became blind, she went to work as nurse, so that she could support him and her four girls. She learnt to drive, becoming the first woman in her small town to… Read More On leaning in to the moment
Motherhood is hard. Make no mistake; this is a truth universally acknowledged amongst mothers of all stripes. Regardless of the philosophies of motherhood to which you subscribe, or the mama-circles in which you move, no other mother will question the enormity of the task to which you have committed. As feminist author Jessica Valenti puts… Read More Crazy Like a Mother
Those who know me or my writing know that I battle with mental illness. As I politely but firmly see 2017 out the door, I am thinking about that battle. This year was a long and difficult one for many reasons, and it has left me bruised in new places, and broken open ancient scars.… Read More On brokenness
Marikana was an echo of where we have come from but Life Esidimeni is a sign of where we’re going. That should scare us all, but not enough of us are paying attention because disabled people were the victims.
Motherhood. They say it takes a village, and let me tell you, ‘they’ were understating it. The truth is, it takes several villages, one for each child, and then one for each life stage your children will drag you through. One of the villages I have sought constant comfort from is that of fellow mothers. Woman… Read More #MamahoodSoWhite
There’s a striking moment about 20 minutes into Jennifer Brea‘s affecting film about her own and countless others’ struggle with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME, more commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome). She is bedridden and filming herself as she reflects on what it means to inhabit this new, limiting body, and the limited life it affords… Read More Their Bodies, Their Selves
*For Chester. May your lights never dim. Your first step – really, your most important step, the step you will return to again and again – is to name the darkness. You see, it operates best in secret, this darkness. It keeps you shrouded and cloaked in its shadows, making sure you feel completely isolated… Read More How to Outrun the Darkness*
*With thanks and apologies to Young Jeezy I had my first panic attack when I was 20. Up till that point, I’d never considered therapy, and had shrugged off the persistent lethargy and darkness that episodically enveloped me. I was an undergraduate psychology major, so I was especially cautious about throwing around labels like ‘anxiety’… Read More My Therapist is Black*
Father’s Day is coming up in two weeks. You’ll be forgiven if you didn’t know that (though, perhaps not by your dad). It’s not exactly a deafening silence, but there is a distinct mutedness surrounding Father’s Day. The barrage of marketing and schmaltz and endless florals and pastels that accompanies the run-up to Mother’s Day is… Read More All I Want for Father’s Day
Rumbi Writes 
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