Constellations

The shedding of blood has historically been seen as a male act of heroism: from right-of-passage fistfights, to contact sports and combat. Infrequent, random events seen as standalone milestones; stories to tell once the pain - and enough time - has passed. Female bleeding is more mundane, more frequent, more getonwithit, despite its existence being the reason that every single life begins

Leaving the home on that last night, I kiss her hands. You were so important, I tell her. You were so loved

Everyone is dazed. Screaming silently, making endless cups of tea. Grief is bewilderment. Grief is circling rooms and talking to unnamed relatives. Grief is a permanent headache and knotted stomach. Grief is sluggish time, staring at strangers on the street and thinking 'how can you act like nothing's happened?'. Grief is being angry that the sun is still shimmering away, smiling in the sky.

The lines between body and womb have become blurred, a vessel inside a vessel. The physical body - the visible collection of bones and skin we present to the world - does not fully belong to its owner if the womb within it contains an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. There are all kinds of people ready to queue up and remind a woman of that.

Hair has been used to define women racially, sexually, religiously. It makes them into temptresses: represents a troika of femininity, fertility, fuckability

I had wanted natural deliveries, but my fused hips made it a dangerous consideration. They were no less births, and I did not feel any less of a mother. Only other people make you feel like that.

Blood donation is that rare and uncomplicated incidence of a selfless good deed.

The books we first read are the ones that indelibly affect us. The characters feel closer to people who are real, who merely happen to live in another time and place.

I will never forget their faces, their incomprehension and tears. Amid all the wrongness of that moment, I knew something was required of me. To hide my fear and offer them a glimpse of a future none of us knew had any certainty. I have no memory of this but my mother told me years later that I looked into her face and said, 'I'm not going to die, I'm going to write a book.' To commit to writing, or art, is to commit to living. A self imposed deadline as a means of continued existence. It has taken me a long time to write that book and here I am, so very far from that awful night

The casualness with which women are berated is never surprising. Our best efforts are not enough, and those unconnected to our lives can be so keen to remind us of it.

The pregnant body is not solely its owner's domain. In gestating another person you become public property.