Freelancer moms!
Haven’t we all been called mercurial at some point or the other in our professional/personal life? I, for one, am bona fide mercurial — here’s why.
“mercurial (adj): characterized by rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood” — Merriam Webster
https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/mercurial-2012-09-16
It’s not all that bad being called mercurial; you might just be Mercury (the planet) personified.
A fascinating planet indeed:
– The smallest and closest planet to the sun, BUT not the hottest
– Mercury orbits with lightning fast speed around the sun. A mercurial year lasts only 88 days, as it is almost tidally locked with the sun. HOWEVER, it takes an unusually long time to rotate on its own axis —a typical day lasts for 176 earth days!
– It has an exceptionally large and dense molten iron core, BUT has an unusually weak magnetic field.
A cornucopia of contradictions, this planet!
https://theplanets.org/mercury/
So, here’s an ode to all volatile, intensely passionate, creative, quick-witted, spontaneous, and distracted freelancer moms.
Always in step with the sun,
That’s my mercurial mum.
Zigzagging through the day
managing the home,
her work,
my play,
With a schedule that changes
every minute
it leaves me awestruck,
whenever she says —
“Yes, I’ve already done it”
Be it my school projects
Or baking for
the school bake sale,
Or the tenth errand
she had to run that day.
An authentic eccentric she is,
Just like mercury’s orbit;
Sometimes an ogre, sometimes a hobbit.
With ice-cold concentration,
engrossed in her work;
were you to interrupt
volcanoes are bound to erupt
She barely sleeps,
it takes a toll,
her iron core
shrinking ever more.
that iron core,
so bewildering —
dense but not rigid,
fluid and not fragile
Its magnetic pull
doesn’t hold you back,
it gives you wings to fly.
Pavitra Baxi 