Flux
by Erin—Age 30—Saskatoon, Canada
Each day is quite different from the last. I am a mother. I am a grad student. My work, however, can scarcely be summed by such labels.
When I was five, my parents decided to go to grad school. In the five years that followed I was very much on my own, save my older brother. I once swore I would never repeat this grave error in judgment that my parents had made. And yet, here I am, riddled with guilt, determined to change the outcome.
This was a day when my daughter had a play date with her grandmother. My head was spinning with ideas from the night before. I snuck past the nagging feeling that my mother couldn’t handle the day that she would face. I blew a kiss to my girl through the kitchen window, and was off.
My day was frantic but still. I sat in the same spot in the library; writing, reading, thinking. But in those brief moments of self-consciousness, when the music in my head took pause, I could feel the ridicule of a younger student…the transparency of my idiocy. I had been whispering some nonsense aloud. I bit my lip so hard it began to bleed. But soon none of it would matter. The post-rock in my ear would revive my belief in an ideal truth, and the importance of aiming toward it. On this day, in a creative whirlwind, I sketched my thesis.
This was a day when my books lay still on the shelf. I made cranberry pear pie in an attempt to warm this big old house. My little girl spent the morning dancing to some early 90’s ambient in the living room. She wanted me to join her, but I couldn’t fain interest in being silly. My thoughts swirled around the book I hoped to write one day about becoming a mother. My insights on the subject were entirely theoretical. Then I caught a glimpse of her slow squat followed by an awkward spin. She made me smile and forget myself.
My pie was sweet, my house was warm. Yet my lack of contentment with such mundane accomplishments drove the flux between my inadequacy in any single role, and my purpose.
We spent the afternoon at the local pool. She loves to swim.
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