Mama Melbourne

You know I think about you all the time
And my deep misunderstanding of your life
And how bad it must have been for you back then
And how hard it was to keep it all inside

I hope you settlе down, I hope you marry rich
I hope you're scarеd of only ordinary shit
Like murderers and ghosts and cancer on your skin
And not your soul and what He might do with it

Noah Kahan. The Great Divide

I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. Until my landlady handed me a simple bouquet of flowers.

“Happy Mother’s Day!” she said.

I started to cry.

Happy Mother’s Day. Or so they say. There isn’t much the western world agrees on these days. But this is one of them. It follows you wherever you go, this day. Like Christmas. Or Easter. Or New Year’s Eve. Whether you like it or not.

A few weeks ago I spent a weekend in Melbourne. My home away from home away from home. Same hotel, same room, same restaurant for dinner, same walk along the St Kilda foreshore. The water, the bay, the skyline, the palm trees lining the Esplanade. No tennis this time — that’s something for January. Instead the familiar bookshop, the Guggelhupf Cafe, and the National Gallery of Victoria.

One of the exhibitions I wanted to see was MOTHER — over 200 works spanning centuries and cultures, from cave paintings to Renaissance frescos to contemporary art, exploring every shade of the maternal experience. Joy and transformation, invisible labour and societal expectation, trauma and loss, mythology and the deep connection between motherhood and Country for First Nations communities. So the announcement on social media promised.

The exhibition was structured into three parts: Creating. Giving. Leaving. Each one resonated deeply with me.

Creating

When I was twelve, I wanted to be a shepherd. A shepherd in Scotland. Or New Zealand. Not the pastoring kind. Nor the Good kind. Just a shepherd looking after sheep — leaning on a gnarly walking stick somewhere in the Scottish Highlands, face turned towards the warm sun. I never pictured the sheep. I never pictured the work.

I also wanted five kids. At least that’s what my sisters say.

Fast forward. Five beautiful sons. Adults now. I did not picture giving birth to five kids. I did not picture the work. And yet I did. Became a mother of five. I created something. My biggest accomplishment. My greatest love.

Giving

And so I turned from Gisela, the aspiring sheperd, to Super Mom. Giving it my best effort and my best years. Mother’s Day was 10k runs and breakfast brunch. Hand drawn cards and sticky pancakes. School crafted gifts — I remember one of them; a traditional hand-print in clay but of another child. I loved them all.

Leaving

Following my dream of working abroad. From Super Mom to Bad Mom in a heartbeat.

Almost five years in Australia now. I won’t pretend the guilt has disappeared. There is something particular about being a mother who leaves her home and her family – not because she had to, but because she needed to. It doesn’t require explaining. And yet somehow it always feels like it does.

That weekend in Melbourne, I arrived at the NGV only to find the exhibition hadn’t opened yet. I was too early. Slightly disappointed, I browsed the digital guide on their website instead. One text stopped me completely. It was written by Ellen Keillard:

“I added angry mother to my identity. Another trope to wear. Draped across my shoulders like my heavy winter coat. Hidden beneath it was the nurturing mother, the intuitive mother, the one being told to reclaim herself before she disappeared beneath her winter layers into a wasteland of love and care. Another mother facing relegation into the shadows of invisibility. Or perhaps I could brace myself for the storm. Wrap myself in a scarf — the tired mother. Pull on my gloves — the overwhelmed mother. Pick up my bag — the guilty mother. Now I was ready for work.”

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Today is a beautiful Sydney day. Blue skies, warm sunshine, a cool breeze. Winter is coming. Families are at the beach, celebrating mothers and grandmothers. Celebrating love.

I think of my friend who just lost her mother. The one feeling overwhelmed by being a mother. The one whose child just left home. I think of my own mother.

I think about why this day feels heavy to me. Why I can’t brush it off as just another Hallmark Holiday — created as a day of quiet personal appreciation, turned into a commercialised feast of flowers and pink-hearted cards. Why I’m scared my kids will forget. Why a simple bunch of flowers from my landlady makes me feel, just for a moment, like a good mother. And a bad one.

Why it makes me cry.

Last night I went to the German Film Festival here in Sydney and watched a film called 22 Bahnen — the story of a mother who couldn’t, and a daughter who stepped in to mother her younger sister. No connection to Mother’s Day intended. And yet it was the perfect lens for everything I’ve been sitting with. Motherhood looks different for all of us. It feels different for all of us. It lands differently on days like this.

The MOTHER exhibition in Melbourne has opened now. I haven’t seen it yet. But I will.

In the meantime, I’m working on adding one more identity to the list.

Happy mother.

Even if I’m crying.

P.S. A beautiful vase of flowers from my wonderful sons just arrived.