April Scientiae

"We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness, which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world" Marcel Proust

The above quote is one of my favourites and I feel it embodies the essence of April Scientiae, which is about overcoming challenges during one's scientific career. Since my scientific career is still a young one, i.e. I've only had less than a year of a postdoc, I'd have to say that the firey fire for me was getting divorced during my PhD.

I was together with my ex-husband for almost 12 years before things began to disintegrate. When you're with someone that long, it's much much harder to let go. I did get married when I was fairly young and as a result spent most of my young adulthood with this one person. And I rightly thought that 12 years is worth battling for, but I also realized that it was not worth dying over. This was a discovery I made at the start of my third year in the PhD. At the end of that year, I was separated.

The divorce was difficult, of course, what divorce isn't. And SkidRow, my ex, a good guy during our marriage, became angry, desperate, and mean during the divorce. To compound the situation, SkidRow had moved fourth months prior to the separation, to the other side of the country because he had just gotten a tenure track position in the arts. For the first 6 months after we separated, he would call 2-3 times a day. Sometimes he would leave horrible phone messages, other times we would talk and I'd end up huddled in a heap of tears on the floor underneath the table, not really sure if I had made the biggest mistake of my life.

Almost immediately following our official separation, I ended up in very bad rebound relationship, though in retrospect, it was this relationship that gave me the courage to go forward with the divorce. When that didn't work out, I became a complete mess. I bet you're wondering how huddled in a heap on the floor in tears is not a complete mess. Well, it's really amazing how far one can fall. Rock bottom for me was anti-depressants and Buffy reruns.

During that dreadful year of my PhD, I would come into work, sit at my desk and stare at the computer, which more often than not hadn't been turned on. Occasionally, I would flip through a growing pile of to-be-read journal articles slumbering beside my computer. Sometimes, I would wander over to the lab and attempt PCR that never seemed to work. Mostly, I exercised. Actually, I think it's all I did. Yoga, ultimate, running, spin class, pilates, cycling. Anything that kept me moving, I did. I lost 20lbs in the matter of a few months. As you can tell, those were two of the most productive years of my PhD.

The end of a PhD is a written thesis, evidence of work completed, not what and how we, as students struggled with and overcame. The PhD is littered with small and big acomodadors. An acomodador is, as described by Paulo Coelho in his book, The Zahir, "a giving up point...an event in our lives that is responsible for us failing to progress... [it] can make cowards of us and prevent us from moving on." Thanks to much love and care, small packages of kindnesses, wisdom, and play from friends, I found the courage to keep going and finally finish the dissertation.

I learned that science can wait. Sometimes the best thing is to put aside the science and take care of yourself. I did that. Ultimately, the completion of the work of the PhD is a solo effort, but it was clear to me that I had help. I could tell some fabulous stories of the small packages of kindnesses that my friends gave me, but instead I shall share with you a poem I wrote for them at the time:

A woman is weeping as she stands at the edge of the world where invisibly love has dissolved across the lines in her hand.

A procession of scar tissue,
each night
you,
a different sheherazade
sung her tale,
the body remembering
where his hands had been,
what his eyes had found
and how his voice still lingered.

I had a dream of you Memory
of you Song
of you Practice
of you Passion
of you Joy
of you Dance
of you my sisters
who found the pieces of my heart,
laced into the snow beside the tall white birch,
clinging to a wet blade of grass by the seawall,
anchored to the salt of the ocean,
flattened against glass in the apartment,
wedged into the paint of pornographic fruit,
naked in the middle of a party.
You reached for them,
embraced and dried the glistening edges,
then gently kissing each piece
returned them to their owner.

Slowly I looked up and held the gaze of Time.
She clasped my hand and whispered sweetly that this too shall pass.
And I believed Her.

I learned how to be compassionate and kind to myself during that second year. I don't think that this directly impacted my science, but it did make me more aware of the place of science in my life. I am a better scientist because I recognize the importance of a work-life balance. I am a better scientist because I realize that even during the course of really tough times, I still wanted to do science. Most of all, I am a better scientist because I know that I am more than just a scientist.