Rehearsals for a Birth Story

Rehearsals for a Birth Story Tracy Breathnach

Losing sleep He had it all worked out – Cut her open and take the child – She resisted – He knocked her out.

As he sliced into her flesh, little did he know she had travelled to the child before him.

“Come on love” she whispered, “time to go.”

Clasping babe to breast, they scarpered out of there before the knife had cut through.

Of course he never noticed that what he picked up was not the child at all, but an old bit of walnut she had the wit to put in its place.

Now by day she acts as though the babe were born of her flesh, cooing over him, feeding him from her breast.

At night, she travels down to attend to her real son, fostered out to some kindly folk on the river bank.

Arrah, it’s a tiring life. She dare not speak of it to anyone.

She lives on the hope that soon the boys Can be swapped – and Who’ll notice? Ah, that’ll Be the night she can sleep.

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No Fixed Abode His soul is not bolted to his body.

Taking full advantage, he moves on.

On my first visit he wasn’t therea small hollow lump on the womb-wall.

The second time, a flock of sanderling on the shoreline, whipping round me, unsettling my nerveshe whisked me off to climb the broken faces of the holy mountains in Peru.

Last night, the third time, I tracked a black asphalt path in Kamchatka tundra.

Lost his tracks when snow melted.

This morning, regaining my weight, unease What if he’s off when it’s time to be born?

He’d come back to a body that had lost its home.

An empty cave of no fixed abode.

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What do they call him?

The man who wields the knife?

The body-slicer, Blood-hound, Skin-barber, Thief-of-babies, Deliverer-of-life?

He’s a stoat in a nest, A guest with a fee, Arrives without hesitation And wipes my womb clean.

He’s an intruder with clean hands, A spy without a face, Violating my system - in and out – But leaves a trace.

Out with Lady’s Bed straw Sow Lady’s Mantle instead, Dissolving his fingerprints Masking his smell.

What grows there now To cover the stain?

Where has my child gone?

Who took her away?

Behind the conquered body Inside the rendered heart, A whisper from a sister, ‘Ask for him back.’

Four bundles to your pillow One of coral, one of gold, Then side by side, your baby, And Pearls, and Sapphire and Moonstone.

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Writing our story We write our story before it begins.

We write it as we dream it to be.

We write it as we think it should be.

We write believing we can know what will happen.

We write our story before it begins, And then feel more ready to begin To step into what we have already written.

Something known.

We begin our story as we have written it.

We begin and we make changes as we go.

We add new details, take others out.

We begin our story and rewrite it as we go.

What does it feel like to step into a story, which we haven’t written?

An unknown story?

The story is writing itself and I am listening.

Sometimes I hear myself in the story.

I pauseA phrase, a beat that I haven’t heard before.

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On Breathing // Air 1 || I’m having a baby.|| I’m || going to have a baby. || I’m expecting.|| I’m || expecting…|| I’m || || expecting…|| 2 || The pregnancy is going smoothly.

The first time || The pregnancy || went smoothly.|| The pregnancy was smoothThere were no complications (So) I was expecting…|| 3 || I’m waiting…|| || I’m hoping… || || I’m planning… || ||How can I plan || for that? ||

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I stand in front of the microphone with my eyes closed. I am doing nothing. I hear my breathfaint and light. It slowly grows heavier. Especially the out-breath. Louder. My attention is focused on letting the air out of my mouth steadily but with some force until there is sound being emitted too. A low, belly sound. Moaning. Like an animal. It reaches a point of intensity before slowly winding back down again until it returns to the point where it started. Light, feathery breath.

There’s nothing to do. Just breathe.

There’s nothing to do. Just breathe.

There’s nothing to do. Just breathe.

Breathe in.

Then Breathe out There’s Nothing to do. Just breathe.

Without changing the rhythm of my breathing, I stand in front of a second microphone. There is a small white bowl next to me on a white plinth, containing four pink balloons. Attending to the steady rhythm of my breathing, I blow each balloon up, tying the knot as I breathe out. I place the balloons in a sharp wireframe container, lined with a dusky pink silk cloth, which is pinned roughly on to the frame. Silk and pins. I have finished blowing the balloons up but can still hear the air being forced into the first balloon. The sound repeats itself. Quietly, in the background, it continues the rhythm of my breath.

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Bubbles of breath Alight.

Huddle in this soft silk frame.

Next to the basket of balloons is a fan. I turn it on and stand in front of it. My hair blowing in the air, which blows faster and faster…then slowing down, and down. My breath again. This time heard on the whirring air. Recorded. Repeated. Turning the fan on its side, so that it is blowing upwards, I take a balloon and place it in the airstream. The balloon dances upwards before eventually falling to the floor. My gaze though - still locked on the fan. I didn’t see the moving balloon. I place a second balloon into the airstream and it too does its own dance, different to the one that went before it. This time, my gaze is fixed straight ahead. I pick up the final balloon and it too finds its own way to dance through the airstream. My head now tilted upwards so I see the height to which the balloon rises. Each time, my gaze held for a few seconds after the balloon has dropped – as though I’m waiting for something.

A dusky wind picks me up – A seed – Dances me alive Scatters me awake I hatch out of my nest Break out of my skin I hear myself falling through bitter air My heaviness dropping, sinking My lightness reaching to stay airborne.

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On Mark-making // Earth 1 || It wasn’t straight forward. || It’s never straight forward. || You can get lost. || I got lost. || Was lost.|| 2 || There is no plan. || There is no way of planning. || There is no way of knowing. || I wish I had known this. || I know this||Now.

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I sit on a red cushion on the floor. I pick up the tonoscope like a giant smoking pipe. I place a white embroidery-framed balloon skin on top of the open-end. Then a handful of black sand. I sound myself into the tube- a low ‘oh’ shifts upwards to become a high ‘ah’. Within seconds the sand on the balloon-skin has started to vibrate. Its scale is multiplied on the large screen behind me. Single grains of sand bounce and quicken. Grains gather and form patterns. Circles. As I alter the pitch of my note, the pattern changes too. The lower the note, the simpler the pattern…concentric circles. As my voice sweeps upwards, the circles form more circles within themselves.

Not ‘ah’ but ‘oh’ she told her ‘Ah’ takes you up, out of yourself ‘Ah’ is for pain ‘Ah’ thinks ‘Oh’ brings you down ‘Oh’ admits you ‘Oh’ opens you up ‘Oh’ feels.

Oh softening cervix Opening to youOh my child.

I move on to the next plinth. A light box. I pour sand, red this time, into a white icing bag. I begin to tap the metal head of the bag on the face of the clear perspex. Tiny grains of red sand tumble out. A small cross in the centre. A dot here and there. Seeds for what is to come. Now I am tapping so the little pools of sand are joining into one continuous circular line. As I pause to move to the next line, the faint tapping is still heard. Circle after circle, from inner to outer, until the labyrinth appears. Tapping, tap-tapping, layers of syncopated sound-dots. Above me the shadow of the labyrinth has been forming all the while.

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On Flowing // Water 1 Being || worn away || || Washed away || ||Borne away. || Being moved || Resist || Being moved || Give way.

2 || Giving myself away || Letting go || Going…|| Going…|| Gone. ||

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I approach another light box. Pink light. With a pink vase on top. A giant pink ear filled with water. Or a womb with its curved fallopian tube. I pick up a long, thin, transparent tube and insert it into the water in the vase. I blow. One breath. The air from my lungs moves through the water as bubbles. The frequency of which is measured by the exertion I must make to keep my breath as steady as possible. The lower the tube, the bigger and fewer the bubbles. Bubbling and plopping recorded and repeated. With each breath, I place the level of the tube slightly higher than the previous time. The sound of each set of bubbles becoming lighter, and quicker, until in my final breath I blow across the surface of the water and there is a continuous sound of bubbling.

I suck water into the tube and carry it across to a small black dish, which is placed on an upturned speaker. Then another mouthful carefully dropped inside the receptacle. The lights have been lowered and I press a switch. Standing close by, a faint humming noise from the vibrating speaker, a quiet tone generating movement in the pool. I shine a torch on the water.

The ripples dance on the screen behind. Dots of light sifting across the screen, colliding with others, connecting, becoming dashes, before moving away again. The sound of fluid molecules fusing and forming. Then darkness again.

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On Burning // Fire 1 || Not contracting, || but Expanding. || Opening- || To all that- || Thighs- || Heart- || Womb- || Softening Breaking open. || Tearing me in the places that hold fast. || Wrenching me from all I thought I knew. || Didn’t know myself. || Couldn’t hear myself. || Listening || Now. 2 || Sometimes I hear myself in the story. || The story that writes itself, || The story that I am writing. || I pause – || A phrase, a beat that I haven’t heard before. ||

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I move to the small television screen on the white square box. It has been playing a film of a fire repeatedly since I began. The small screen is now echoed on the large screen too. The camera shot is fixed, but slowly moves in and out of focus. Blurring and clearing flames and smoke. I watch the screen for a few minutes. Then taking some thick sticks of charcoal from a white bowl, I begin to write on a blank page on the floor in front of me. This is my story this is my story this is my story this is my story this is my story this is my story this is my story this is my story this is my story this is my story this‌

Once the page is full of my words I crumble the remaining charcoal into the bowl, followed by a squirt of a clear gel from a white bottle. I mix them together until they form a paste. Raising my vest, I use the charcoal-paste to paint a spiral on my belly. Starting from the navel and winding outwards. I lie down, smudging the words as my body rubs over them. I hold the Doppler machine in my hand. I rub the head of it around my belly, made smooth with the gel, until I pick up the heartbeat. I listen to it. Record it. The heartbeat forms the top layer of the soundscape.

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Unfolding // Cloth Under the breathing fire on the screen, I return to the centre of the space and pick up the red cloth which has rested as a circle all this time. I stretch it out and move to one end. Slowly, lowering myself into it, I begin to roll into the cloth, wrapping my entire body. Once I reach the end of the cloth, I pause, before rolling back out again, emerging from under the weave.

Fire fades.

Light fades.

Sound fades.

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|| So I must write the script with pauses.

I mark them on the page, like tree trunks growing between the words.

When I read the script I breathe.

And in those wooded places I practice the pause, filling it with air as though it were an empty balloon.

Sometimes the balloon lifts me off my feetI clutch at the tree’s crown, And try to remember the words.

I have marked the red ribbon paths through the woods In case one day I stray too far, -we need to think of home.

It’s a balancing act, fanning the words into lifeToo little air and they suffocate, Too much and they explode.

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Heartplant The ward in darkness. New breath.

A mother tightens to defend it.

Jaguar’s heart heaves tears.

She hunts for your softnessFollowing the scent of your beginningas hungry for your flesh as you are thirsty for her breath.

In darknessnew mother. Ragged breath loosens the heartlistens fiercelyfinds fleshsips breath.

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What my Mother couldn’t tell me is that she didn’t know.

Her eyes had become ashCaving in on the walls her mouth had grown.

What is happening? I cried.

Frozen

across the room, she avoided my eyes.

Why don’t you help me? Whispering, whisperingUntil smaller, smaller, she was gone a knot of mercury tangling in the medical chair.

As for I, caught in thoughts of where she might bethe wing beats brought me back just in time to see an old bird go out the window. `

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This pamphlet formed part of my practice-based PhD: Giving Birth to Maternal Subjectivity: Narrative, rhythm and caesura in an autobiographical practice of birth story-telling. (2017). Aberystwyth University.

Funded by Arts & Humanities Research Council and Dept Film & Television Studies, Aberystwyth University.

www.tracybreathnach.com

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