Margaret T. Irsch Annual Writing Award
2019 Recipient Molly F. "String Theory" When I was little I made a theory. A theory that you have a string attached to your heart for every person you’ve ever loved. And not just romantic love either. All love, platonic, romantic, familial. The string was attached to your heart and the heart of the other person and no matter where you went the string would grow to fit the distance. Whenever my mom would go on a business trip I would imagine the string growing as she drove and it would wind around trees, and through the halls she walked, and in the air after the airplane, and eventually back up the road to our house. It was better to imagine the string when she went on longer trips because then the possibilities of where the string would grow were endless! Of course, when she came back home the string shrunk again so that all the places she went were smushed into its memory. Whenever I didn’t see my Meme (my grandma) for a long time I would just have to think of the string stretching over the highway, the west river, the fields. Into town, over the park, and up the stairs to her apartment. And there she would be reading, or painting, or watering her plants. Or she could instead be in the Works, or at the River Gallery helping little kids paint without getting completely covered in the paint. I use this theory even now. When my grandpa goes off on a hike all alone or when my dad has been gone for a while. I use it at sleepaway camp when I‘m getting overwhelmed by the constant close proximity of all the other campers. I use it at school when I‘m bored out of my mind or when I‘m just lonely. I use the theory on characters from books and TV shows and movies sometimes even though they don’t exist in the real life I think about where in the world they might go on one of their stories and then I connect the string. All of my relatives get a string. My aunt Sarah and her partner Al down in Texas and my Aunt Jemima at that retreat thing in California. My cousins: Simeon in Alaska, Max in Illinois, Nick and Jenna and their kids. Cousins Jonah and Hazel and all my Mom's siblings. Uncle Zeke and his partner Laura. Their cats. Everyone else. They are all connected by an unbreakable basically invisible string. Later on I learned about the mathematical scientifical string theory and I thought, “Hey, naming my theory string theory would be funny!” and string theory was born. A pale string like fishing line, connecting you to everyone one you’ve ever loved. Everyone has strings and everyone's strings attach to different people, which results in every human being being connected in some small way. A web of interconnected strings mapping the globe. It’s fun to mentally list everyone you can think of and connect a line between you and them. Every once in a while, when I‘m lonely or I miss someone, I remember this theory and I imagine it connecting me to everyone I've ever loved.
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November 2019
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