Neither here nor there

I couldn’t attend this year’s HASTAC Conference, because I’m not quite ready for work travel after baby S was born in July. But I’m still tuning in. During the opening plenary, which was a fantastic panel discussion featuring Tressie McMillan Cottom, Purdom Lindblad, T-Kay Sangwand, and Anastasia Salter, I tweeted this:

Academic motherhood means watching a livestream and tweeting while also pumping milk for little baby. #glamorous

Katina Rogers (@katinalynn) November 2, 2017

I posted it as a small gesture toward the ways that bodies and caregiving can complicate work, a nod at why attention to accessibility (like livestreaming) matters, and also a consideration of the ways that I try to remain in community even when I can’t physically be somewhere. But I’ve been thinking more about it, and I realized there’s something else behind it, too—something that makes me a little sad.

Watching a livestream while pumping breastmilk is not just an indication of where I am, but where I’m not. I’m not at the conference; that’s why I’m watching the livestream. But I’m also not with my baby; that’s why I’m pumping. The tweet was meant to show that I was embodying two identities at once, but it also means I’m not in either space fully.

The transition back to work has been more challenging for me this time around despite an incredibly supportive boss, coworkers, and institutional structure, and I think this tweet captures a big part of why. I want so much to be more fully present in both parts of my identity, and at this particular moment, I feel distanced from both. And that is not an easy place to be.