But, underneath all those mind-tricks, what I also now knew was that it really was time to step up and try. I was going to be a mother soon; I really needed to give this everything I had.
And, so, I did.
The magazine covers on display at the newsagency with the headlines spruiking the wonders of a woman whose body ‘bounced back quickly’ after pregnancy, and the worry that my body would do no such thing, did fill me with dread. But they also filled me with fury and, it turns out, I’m not the kind of woman to let a good bout of fury go to waste. It was quite useful in the long run. In my career, in those incredibly challenging early years, my fury on behalf of the women I loved, on behalf of the world that I’d one day be handing to my children, and my desire to tell a different story, allowed me to remain clear about what I stood for, and why I was here, doing what I do. I was not here to play perfect. Perfect is not only impossible, it’s also … bloody boring. Fuck that! I wasn’t here for that. I was here to give it a red hot crack. Why not?
Frank’s story—the one about how my body was wrong, and how it wasn’t possible to be a good-enough mother and a woman of ambition, and how much shame I would bring to my family if anyone ever found out about me—remained loud. So loud I began to sense that perhaps this was not just my personal story, perhaps this was a collective story—one I’d picked up, somehow, from the world around me. I understood something new, then, about shame, and how it comes to settle inside us. Surely I wasn’t the first woman to feel this way? I looked, then, for other women who had stood up to this feeling, and I found them everywhere. In books and newspapers; even in my own backyard.
Inside me, a song began to brew. This one was different. It was louder. My heart felt hot with excitement every time I thought about it. When the time was right, I grabbed some paper and a pen, I sat myself down on the floor in the front room—just me and that feeling and a guitar I called Ruby—and out came a song with lyrics so fully formed, all I had to do was to open my mouth:
I’m a human being
I’m a human being
I’m a human being
I have desires also.
As I sang those words loudly, and then louder, they grew to feel like one small line of defence against one of Frank’s most persistent stories—the one about how motherhood would be the end of me, and that, in order to be a good mother, I would have to cease to exist. My dreams would have to cease to exist. On behalf of the child who was coming, and the other women who felt what I was feeling, I just was not going to fall for it.
I called that rebellious little beast of a song ‘Human Being’.
With Marty’s help, it would go on to be my very first single; a song put in the world to ask the question, do you feel this way too?
Our child was due to be born in the first week of December, and was now thirteen days late. The obstetrician had already warned me that if I still hadn’t gone into labour by day fourteen, I was going to need to be induced. This news made me very grumpy indeed. It was the middle of summer, I was hot and sticky, I wanted this baby born soon, but I didn’t want to be induced. I wanted my baby to come in his or her own time (but quickly, please). I told Marty that I was going to try to get things moving on my own. This kid needed to be told, ‘Buddy, the time is now!’ I told Marty I was going out walking, and I wasn’t coming home until I was in labour. He asked me to, please, don’t overdo it. Don’t walk too far. Look at me, I said, waddling in a circle. I doubt I’ll make it around the block. If I get to Merri Creek, one kilometre down the road, I’m going to declare it a miracle. He packed me a water bottle, I packed myself some food, a mobile phone, and off I waddled, munching angrily on hand snacks all the way from Thornbury to Northcote, a trail of crumbs in my wake. Near Rucker’s Hill, I heard a bell chiming, a church bell, and I decided that it was a sign. From who, or what, I was no surer then than I am today, but I followed that bell all the way to a Catholic church I’d never noticed before. I entered, put twenty cents in a slot that made an electric candle light up, said a short prayer (‘For F’s sake, gimme a hand here!’) and then I just took a little break, sat on a pew munching crackers and crying in frustration until a kindly priest came over and asked me if I was all right. No, I barked, I was not all right, I was over this, I was bloody over it and, also, I was really, really scared. He
