I decided to bring in a rock from the courtyard of my apartment building for my mini-inquiry. Yes, I know it sounds like I picked it up on my way to the bus stop before class, but there’s more to it than that. When we were told to bring in something from nature, the first thing that came to mind was a rock. Why? To this day, I’m still finding leftover remnants of my childhood rock collection in amongst my things.

For as far back as I can remember, I was the living embodiment of ‘I Collect Rocks’ by Al Simmons. I would come home from school with my pockets weighed down by all the little stones and pebbles I thought were interesting enough to warrant a place in my vast collection that filled the drawers and many surfaces of my bedroom. It didn’t matter if I had a hundred rocks that looked similar, something about each called to me in a way. So did teaching. When I would be making my plans for the future, listing the jobs I would pursue and weighing the validity of my choices, teaching was always one of the first off the list (due mostly to self-doubts that I have since worked past). I dabbled in the worlds of hairstylists, medical office assistants and graphic designers, staying in one career a lot longer than the others, trying to find where I fit. Alas, they were the mud-caked gravel I would find on the way home, the ones that would entertain me for a while, that might kick along my path to the corner just beyond my driveway, but never bring through the front door.

The second reason I chose the rock was for where I found it – I, in my 30 years of life, have always been relatively dependant on other people. I had spurts of living away from home when I moved to Slave Lake and travelled Europe, but for the most part, I’ve been a homebody. But now, for the foreseeable future, I am more or less on my own. Yes, I have a roommate (who happens to be my sister, who texts me when she hasn’t heard from me in over 24 hours, and sends her boyfriend to check hospitals and morgues if I don’t respond promptly), but I am alone a lot more than I have ever been. And that’s definitely new. So this rock is a representation of my newfound independence and the new chapter of my life. Like any rock, it began as a part of a bigger whole and broke away to find it’s new life. It’s been shaped, smoothed, cracked and forever changed by it’s experiences, but it’s very core (like my core values) has stayed the same.