This is why I cannot be a mother

This is why I cannot be a mother: I have been a mother my whole life. I am a mother to my work, I am a mother to my dancers regardless of their capability; I am a mother to my flatmates and friends. I am a mother tonight, knowing my children will pay gratitude for the complements of friends who did not have to nag, give notes, sort finances, make decisions that would sometimes be wrong. I spent most of my adolescence - and my old life - playing mother to my own mother. So while everyone is birthing children into a world that is turning itself into a furnace, I will be on vacation with myself.