Daily Bread ♥

After my third child was born I struggled. I never thought I could get postnatal depression. I never really thought of it as a real condition. I know how this must sound; mothers often talk about postnatal depression, but back then it was almost like 'I was listening but not hearing'. The information would become so distorted that by the end I wasn't really sure what to make of it. So for me, everything I understood of postnatal depression came as a 'Chinese whisper'. 

To be perfectly honest, I never read much about it either but, being around so many mothers, I knew of a few who'd had it. Now looking back I never fully realised what they were going through. 

My very first experience of being a mother was all about partying with family and friends and feeling joy and relief at not being dead after giving birth. The immense love I felt for this little baby surpassed everything else. Why would anyone feel down after giving birth to their child? I really couldn't comprehend it.

Even today after having experienced postnatal depression myself, I still don't quite understand what happened. All I know is I was struggling to get to the end of the day. As people would say 'I wasn't coping'. I wasn't coping with the amount of work, the constant attention required of me and the complete annulment of my own self. In the future I will post a few photos taken during my very low days, but today I'm going to share with you the bread work. 

That's how it all started. Angry Eyebrows at breakfast.

I wasn't even trying to make my children eat. It just happened and now I have a collection of different bread emoticons. However, this is the one I feel represented me the most. Don't ask me why I was angry, I wouldn't be able to give you a straightforward answer. I guess that at times I felt like life was unfair and as I struggled through my day I was constantly reminded of it. Angry Eyebrows picture is my personal mental note not to take life too seriously, to relax and just enjoy what comes and goes. 

This is what happened next:

I felt lonely. My husband working so hard and me back home spending the days with 3 little children... As much as you love them and would do anything for them you still need your space! I gave myself such a hard time thinking I was being difficult and should have got a grip. But in retrospect I think that essentially I couldn't accept being human. It was only human to feel the way I felt. I know that now.

These painted slices of bread talk about my frustrations during those days. Many have random words written on them - words that were part of the thoughts polluting my brain. It's difficult to pin point exactly what or when things went wrong. I just opened my eyes one day and there I was, without a choice left facing this illness. I guess that painting my children, and other random things I related to at that time, occupied my mind and somehow liberated it for a short while. Depression is just a stop on the way to acceptance and I think in my case painting bread sat somewhere between point A and point B.

My third child is now 1 year old and all those feelings have somehow gone. Of course I get my down days but I don't feel 'chronic' as I did last year. We still don't know what causes postnatal depression but one thing is sure, so much is expected from us as mothers; from our choice of birth to the way we feed our children, we often start this new journey being made to feel we've already failed. These days so much more is understood of our children and their world that it's difficult for us to tick all the boxes... 

Things could have gone worse but luckily I managed to surface. I knew I was getting better when this work happened, it's called 'Seeing it through'.

© Amy Dignam 2013

Peas in a Bucket ♥

One thing that I've found myself constantly doing since having children is picking things up from the floor. Not just random things, I mean toys around the house, clothes, books and food! Peas are the worst thing to pick up. You think you've got them all but then after a few days you find another one hiding in some obscure corner, dried and hard like a stone. I hate picking peas up so much it's put me off eating them.

I once counted how many times I'd repeated this same action in one day and was amazed to discover I actually bent down 219 times in 12 hours!

Who needs to work out? I thought. Well "Peas in a Bucket" comes from my awareness of these repetitive actions performed everyday, testing my physical limits and my psychological strength. Of course kneeling down 219 times a day sounds hideous but they’re spread out, so one doesn’t really register it’s happening.

In the film, I aim to gather those moments into one. I do it consecutively without stopping as a way to acknowledge the effort and struggle during my everyday and also to expose, in perhaps a more drastic way, how a simple and infrequent (for some) action like picking something from the floor can become so exhausting and tedious.

Amy Dignam 2013 ©

Living in London- 'Saints Alive' exhibition, Dixie's review ♥

I never thought I was going to have three children (or even one for that matter!). Anyway, after Dixie I thought that was it. I put all my time and effort into her upbringing. From the age of six months I regularly took Dixie to the theatre, exhibitions, art galleries, museums and general happenings around London. That's it, this is the thing! London! 

I came from a really small town called San Remo. When I was a young girl my parents worked all the time, so nothing really happened until I was that little bit older and able to go places on my own. If I wanted to go to an exhibition, an art gallery or a concert I would have to travel to Milan, Turin or Genoa which are all a good 3 to 4 hours away by train. Nothing happened in my hometown. The popular "Festival di San Remo", a folk/singing festival, was the most interesting thing that happened and once a year me and my friends made sure we were in the thick of it for the whole week. That meant standing all day in front of the Ariston Theatre in the rain, waiting for singers and bands to come down the red carpet and to see them for half second - or hide behind bushes in front of hotels waiting to see a posh car with blacked out windows drive by. Madness! 

Living in London to me is incredible. I feel blessed every single day and I don't care when people complain about the weather, the traffic or the tourists, I still love it and wouldn't change it for anything in the world. People often ask me if I would ever go back to Italy. What for? I say. Why would I deprive my children of London? We have amazing parks, galleries, museums, multicultural neighbourhoods - everything you need to learn is on our doorstep. No, I have no desire to go back to Italy and with it go back in time. I am happy here and in the future, if they ever feel the need to move away, I will be supporting them every step of the way. But for now we stay put. 

Things have changed a lot since having 3 kids. I can't go exploring around as much and most days I stay local. However, I still like to take them around town to see the occasional show at the theatre or an exhibition etc. One of the last times I took Dixie out was a few weeks ago when we went to see "Saints Alive", the latest Michael Landy exhibition at the National Gallery. We read about it before going and there were lots of questions like "What are saints?" etc. etc. I must say that, apart from the loud noises, she really enjoyed looking at the "alive" sculptures and was very inquisitive about the whole body of work. In fact she was so immersed in the experience that she never once complained of being bored. So, below is the exhibition in her own words (with maybe a few prompts). From time to time I will post Dixie's reviews of events happening in town as I believe other children might feel stimulated by it and the grown ups motivated to go out and experience our beautiful city, London...

"Me and you went to London to see the Saints Alive exhibition. We were excited. We like art and the exhibition looked very interesting. We saw a lady trying to pull her teeth out. It was very noisy "bang, bang!", I was a bit scared because the noise was very loud.

Saint Apollonia, Michael Landy 2013

There was another man that when he did something bad, would bang a stone on his chest. He also was a saint. Saints help and they are very clever. They are special people that help people. There was another saint with a sword that chopped his head because he was mad at himself. But I don't know why. Then we saw the wheel. There was lots written on the wheel. We also watched a video of the artist who made these sculptures. He went around looking in the gallery before making his artwork... but why weren't we allowed to take photos?... Anyway, the sculpture I liked the most was the wheel because it could tell the future and the one I liked the least was the man chopping his head because I don't like people dying."

Dixie, 6 years old.

Mix Saints, Michael Landy 2013

You can see Michael Landy's 'Saints Alive' at the National Gallery - Trafalgar Square London WC2N 5DN, until November 24th. Admission Free.