Tag Archives: essay

1. Have your child squeeze about ½ cup (4 ounces) of glue into a glass bowl.¹

For as long as I can remember, I’ve found comfort and pleasure in the sensation of soft things slipping through my fingers. I actively sought, and continue to seek out, sensory experiences I can squish in my hands, savouring the feeling of something being squeezed through the delicate space between each finger. As such, the space between my fingers has long been a murky secondary pleasure zone, producing in me an eagerness to run my hands through any dangling, soft, or gloopy matter within reach.

By Ella Adkins

Between January and March of 2021, my Monday to Friday ritual went a little bit like this: 

I’m sitting on Zoom, and a grid of familiar strangers looks back at me. I see myself in the top left corner next to my professor. My hair is slightly unkempt after my daily pilates workout, and I hadn’t cared to look in the mirror—a regular occurrence these days. After some awkward virtual small talk (“How’s the weather in California, Andrew?” and “How is everyone coping?”), the professor clears his throat to begin class. He begins with a reading of the Archibald Lampman poem “Heat:” 

“Beyond me in the fields of sun

Soaks in the grass and hath his will;

I count the marguerites one by one; 

Even the buttercups are still.” 

I walk over to the stove to stir my oatmeal, carrying my professor’s voice to the kitchen through Airpods.