the purefinder - archives - Tue, 2005-01-04
« the same profound calmness | Main | "you plant a tiny little detail which shouldn't be there" »January 04, 2005
a different burden
The benefits of forcing oneself to walk around, amongst, and up mountains are almost endless.
Last night I was reminded of one of these.
At approximately 9:20 pm I finished a college project that I had been working on, intermittently, for three months. The project was, I hope, intended to allow us to make an independent epistemological investigation. We were asked to study an object from the natural world with resorting to secondary sources of information and to reflect and analyse our learning and the knowledge we had gained. We were also asked to use the project to explore a range of media and approaches to create a body of artwork prompted by our (Starting Point) object and prepare a reflect and analytic account of our work.
I generated slightly in excess of 10,000 words of commentary. We were required to bind a book (starting from card, sugar paper and thread) to contain our work. I also chose to make a website to present my work and, indeed, to be part of my work.
We had been warned by more senior students that this project, whilst enjoyable and worthwhile, would also come to be a burden to us. By its very nature it was difficult to feel that the project was complete. It was perhaps impossible to complete the project bearing in mind our nascent academic abilities as first year undergraduates. Our other investigations into knowledge and learning will continue at college for another two years and it appears sensible to presume that the work we would be able to produce would (and should) grow in sophistication over the next two years of the degree.
At 9:20 pm last night I squirted the final droplets out of an aerosol can of mounting spray adhesive; I pressed a small piece of card with my name (written using a dip pen and Indian ink) and a repeated motif of a feather (printed using a potato carved appropriately) onto my book's front cover.
My book was finished.
I was immediately reminded of removing a heavy rucksack at the end of a day's walking and feeling myself grow - feeling myself spring back up.
I had been burdened.
A Tangent Concerning Another Burden
Last night, being close to the beginning of the year, required us to transfer the birthdays from the old kitchen calendar onto the new year's version. The kitchen calendar is the main organisation tool used in our family. We use it to tell us where we need to be - and when, when we can do things and when we can't do things.
We found:
2nd February - Barbara Doctor
10th February - Hospital
12th February - Hospital
23rd February - Hospital
The hospital visits were a prominent feature on the calendar after that point.
Each one of those dates on the calendar represented an increased burden.
- A visit to the doctor to have a breast lump prodded.
- A referral to the breast cancer clinic for biopsies.
- A return visit for the results of the biopsies - to be told that Barbara had breast cancer.
- An operation to remove the tumour and give Barbara a statistically enhanced chance of getting old.
Looking at the calendar we discussed how last year we would have been doing similar things, sorting out the calendar and trying to get ready for one child's return to school and one child's start at school. Barbara would have been just about to return to work after the Christmas break and I had been stressing over my attempt to produce a brilliant application form for my college course.
We didn't know that in a couple of weeks we'd be starting to fill the calendar up with visits to doctors and hospitals and that eventually the visits became so frequent - daily - that the calendar was no longer adequate to cope with the scheduling required and a separate card had to be appended to the notice board.
We also didn't know that we would be able to manage to carry that burden and survive as a loving family and... well, that was enough.
Today Barbara returned to work for the first time since the visits to doctors appeared on the calendar.
She was apprehensive about her return to work - understandably.
We shared concern about this new added complication to our lives; looking after the childre's needs when I was at college and Barbara was at work.
We were apprehensive about the return of normality.
It is probably more accurate to say that we were apprehensive about exchanging one normality for another; even when that meant exchanging the normality we have just had - the one with cancer - for this one with work and college and attendant childcare complications.
A different burden and a reminder of how we abhor change.
Posted by padraig at January 4, 2005 07:08 PM