After almost a year in the UK, the seasons are beginning to make sense. Arriving 22 weeks pregnant to a dark November (read: bloody bleak), I was bracing myself for my first white Christmas. It wasn’t white, and there was no hint of romance. We were house-sitting and had all caught some sort of vomiting bug. My husband lovingly made us nut roast and apple crumble, and we were together, warm and safe. We gifted our daughter a toy baby and pram as a sort of ominous warning of what was to come, and I felt a familiar warmth of gratitude.
Fast forward nine months, and I’m sitting in a field in North Wales. It’s nature at its finest. I’m camping for the first time with my two children. My phone is off. I’m sun-kissed and, by a long way, much happier. I ponder the idea of the seasons and how we need them all.
This day was my first day of being 33. I tried to recount every birthday I’d had. I scribbled them down on a scrap of paper from my journal. I could only make it back to 18 (highlights being 23: dinner at Coco’s Cantina and karaoke on K Road with my then ride-or-die Sammy-Rose, and then there was my 30th, in the 2021 lock-down, with my new 4-week-old daughter. Candles and a Zoom party. Unforgettable, I thought).
For me, my life has always rolled in seasons. It’s inescapable. There’s the season for hunkering down and going inward, for holding, writing, and recording—for personal growth. There’s also a season for newness and release. Cue birth and death. They sort of go together, huh? Both are so dramatic and change you forever.
I’m not the first mother to have these reflections upon becoming one, but I feel compelled to jot them down. I’m currently on tour, with the girls in tow. I finished up in Penzance last night. The whole week has been glorious. Back in the saddle of song after my second daughter was born in March, I’m reminded how much I need this: the road, the rhythm, the cycle of it all.
Anyway—I’m in no way a Marie Kondo fanatic, but I can see what she’s getting at. Moving countries forced us into the Big Shed, ridding ourselves of most things: our beloved crockery, weird scarves, everything from under the house. It was enlivening! Freedom. Some things were too precious to part with, of course. My framed Jacinda Ardern ‘Aroha’ print, precious friends’ artwork, my Janet Frame collection, school reports, various talisman. And so they sit in storage. Waiting to be rescued.
With the impending arrival of my new record, five years since the last, I’ll be harping on a lot about these sorts of things: newness, change, motherhood, my inner child. Because that’s what this record touches on, I think. A lot happened in those short yet long years (time, the elusive healer) , and sometimes I don’t know where to start. This will be my fourth album, and I’m in the depths of it now. I remain a proud university dropout, but I’d still like the piece of paper someday. More on that another time…
Spring is upon you, lovelies, in Aotearoa, the land of my birth, and Autumn for us here and although the prospects can sometimes feel a bit dim, tomorrow is new, and I’m determined for there to be goodness and awe. Try to look up, and out, and in. It’s there.
PS. I’m committing to writing to you monthly, whomever you are, feel free to write back to me via Substack, and if I don’t reply, just know I’ve read it. I suppose my commitment is part of a desire to improve my writing and to stay connected to myself and to you, the wider network that make this whole thing possible. It’d be damn lonely to turn up to rooms and sing for myself, so I’m eternally grateful, for you all.
PPS. I can’t wait for you to hear the new single. Baby Bright 9.10.24.
And YES, that’s Robyn Malcolm.
x N
Nad thanks darlin for the entry and real.talk ..... mega luv to the today whever this finds you ... in Cali and it's HOT ...more to come ...h
Thanks for these lovely reminiscences and images. Soon you'll be 33 1/3...an auspicious time to put out new music!