June is in full flow – and so are my tears
I am feeling a little overwhelmed
I’m at the stage of pregnancy where I am contemplating eating my son’s Easter chocolate. We squirreled it up onto a high shelf back in April, to ‘save for later’, and he has conveniently forgotten all about it. Every day it calls to me, a little bunny with the voice of temptation. However, unfortunately, my son has not forgotten the fact that I polished off his Christmas chocolate back in December, while he was sleeping, in a similar moment of pregnancy craving. He will still regularly say, six months later, ‘Remember when you ate my chocolate Santa?’ and shake his head in adject disappointment. It’s really a conundrum. Might seeing the wrapper in the bin jog his memory? Should I therefore eat it and hide the wrapper? Or should I be a good mother and let it languish on the shelf until next Easter? Decisions, decisions.
The thing we have not stopped eating is cucumbers. I reckon we are averaging two a day. I’ve had recipes for salads, pickles and soups, but so far have just been eating them raw, relishing the hydration in a heatwave. Sales of the cucumbers begin in earnest today. As I write, my boyfriend is putting the signboard at the top of the driveway. I have visions of cars snaking their way out into the road, their owners desperate for a bargain-price organic cucumber. The manager of the sushi restaurant in the next village screeching in, chucking a load of cucumbers into the back of a van. The local snail farm proprietor stampeding towards the greenhouse and taking away boxes and boxes. I may be over-egging this. I’ll let you know.
The primary emotion I’ve been feeling this week is overwhelm. There is just so much going on: vegetables being harvested, school reports being written, babies being grown, baby clothes being washed. I remember all the mamas in Tanzania that I used to see on my way to work, who strapped their babies to their backs, and cracked on with their day, usually doing something very physical under a burning sun, and I think to myself, I am weak. And pregnancy heightens everything. My feelings hang around annoyingly at the top of my throat, and everything makes me cry. My son had a taster session at school this week: I cried. A student was a tiny bit ruder than usual: I cried. I was hungry: I cried. What is the evolutionary function of all these tears? I have not yet reached the depths of my previous pregnancy, in which I sobbed in the car listening to ‘I’ll Make A Man Out Of You’ from Mulan, a song which is not at all sad. It might not be far off though.
Where there are more tears, there is also more fatigue, and more joy. I find myself breathing in all of the scents of the farm in rapture: jasmine that I did not plant, mint leaves (for the cucumbers, obviously), and tomato plants in the greenhouse that are now taller than me. I lie in bed with insomnia, every position less comfortable than the last, and I calm myself back to sleep with the sounds of the river rushing past. Summer in Toulouse is scorching, and I am thankful for the thick walls of our house that keep us cool. I am thankful for all of it: this surprising, overwhelming, fantastic rollercoaster of a life.