Having moved back into my childhood home after two years of living in single floor residences, I'm realizing how grateful I am to live in a space with stairs. Their impact on my day is astounding; the steps are where my family puts our shoes on in the morning, where (according to my parents) I'd commonly fall asleep as a toddler, and serve as my Everest after long days on campus. When my sister and I would stay awake past our bedtime as kids, my sister would listen for my parent's footsteps on the stairs and could distinguish if it was mummy or papa coming to check on us. I use the stairs in much the same way today: they are my tool to "see" who is coming up to the upper floor while I'm studying, reading, writing or organizing in my room. 

Admittedly, days during midterm or exam seasons see my sensitivity to the sound of footsteps muffled by my heightened sense of stress. On other days, however, the sound makes me want to never spend another minute in my bedroom with the door closed. Where my identity as a student or writer can suck me into the "bubble" that is my room, the sound of footsteps on the stairs gratefully calls me back to my identity as a daughter and sister. I'd love to always leap out of my chair to see who is coming up the stairs, and rarely have a reason to stay in my bubble. 

Listening for the sounds of the stairs are one of many structural elements that shape my feeling of home, a cognitive association turned into daily practise. Associations like these make me want to hit "pause" on this time of my life. I had missed this reminder of plurality the past two years. I also know that all too soon, this time and living a lifestyle like this - with my parents in the small, quiet town that witnessed my childhood - will be super seeded. So for now, I feel privilege for the comfort I am enveloped by with these familiar, repeatedly-encountered surroundings. 

However, this comfort in excess can also act as an impediment by encouraging me to take fewer risks. Thus, I've been reflecting on what it means to resist pure comfort and sustainably create your own challenges. 

Almost as if on cue, the 2024 Laidlaw Annual Conference arrived to challenge my normalcy.

As my first solo(ish) trip abroad, the Conference offered every new opportunity I'd been looking for. New York brought me away from my familiar sounds and stimuli, offering the perfect backdrop to create my own itinerary, challenges and opportunities. Between sightseeing with my fellow UofT scholars, a morning walk through Morningside Park and touring the Columbia/Barnard campuses, my every sense turned porous. Learning from diversely-lived scholars helped me embrace the theme of curiosity by challenging my assumptions. I worked to understand other scholar's research, their lived experiences, insights on their scholar journeys and life philosophies. I spent the two days in New York getting comfortable with my syntax, inspirations, knowledge and boundaries being tested.

The University of Toronto's Laidlaw Delegation 

Then all too soon, Amy Moore gave the closing address on Sunday. Boarding the plane on route back to everything warm and familiar, I thought "I'll never have an experience like this, with these people and in this context". I felt a deep weight in my heart, as it marked the end. 

It has now been one week since the end of the Laidlaw Conference, and I'm back to the sound of footsteps on the stairs in my childhood home. But the person typing these words today is different; she's slightly more self-aware, empowered, motivated and rejuvenated than the person who was here before last weekend. My conference experience may be over in the literal sense, but the challenge of cultivating curiosity it set me on has not ended. 

Juxtaposing my conference experience onto my familiar surroundings, though, has been tough. I feel an impetus to "get out of my bubble" and seek out new experiences, while also knowing the integral source of focus that it provides me with. Admittedly, I don't have a precise plan as to how I will move forward balancing these factors. And as we enter into final exam season at UofT, I expect it to be harder to keep myself in my bubble this time around. I only know that I've gotten addicted to my conference experience, and want to seek out more opportunities like it. 

Though for today, the sound of my parent's footsteps coming up the stairs was all I needed.