I’ve been back at work for a month. The transition has been scarily easy; my days quickly became bitterly concerned about documents and events that mere weeks ago merited no more than a polite nod whenever someone in my company would mention them, mostly because I’d lobotomized myself against the lexicon of bureaucratese. Like most of the Canadian public, I scarcely cared who the Prime Minister was, so long as the child benefit came each month so that my supplies of beer and popcorn could be replenished.
It was glorious.
And different now. Now, the toothpaste tube of real life is squeezed by 9-to-5 obligations, leaving a sticky blue mess in the bathroom sink that no one’s at home to clean up, and if I didn’t have time to floss before bed before, I sure as hell don’t now.
Behold! Here she is, my idol: Sheryl Siddiqui of Redworks Art in Ottawa. A month or so ago I went to pick up a few free community newspapers for a project I was doing and saw her face splashed across the cover. She was having an open house for the community, and so we packed up the kiddies and hit the road. I’d seen Sheryl at a mutual friend’s house a few times before but had no idea she was an artist, let alone a good one. A really, REALLY good one. All that, AND a mother of two young boys. I was envious. My creative talents compared to hers? Inadequate. Where, I wondered, did she find the time?
It was funny then, how when Sheryl asked me how I’d heard about the open house, and I told her about the paper-mâché Eiffel Tower hat I was planning to make The Beaver for her Halloween costume, she said, without a trace of irony: “I don’t know how you find the time for such things. That’s amazing.”
I smiled, made way for the lady coming next through the door, and left. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the park playing with the kids in the sand. The Eiffel Tower hat didn’t get done until weeks later, and after all that, The Beaver wouldn’t wear it anyway.
