Voyager: Claire's Vocation (again)

So the question of vocation gets sticky when tangled with Roger's self-perception and first tentative questioning of why he is what he is, and Frank's insecurity with Claire's vocation and passion and his relative lack of vocation, and passion.  As Claire is the central character and common denominator, her own experience of vocation carries greater weight, and Roger and Frank at this point serve to "fill in" the picture of Claire.  So it is worth noting when Claire remembers Mrs. Graham's fortune telling as it reflects on fate and individual destiny:

“The lines in your hand change as you change,” she had said. “It’s no so much what you’re born with, as what ye make of yourself.” (107)

So destiny.  Is it a thing?  Identity.  Is it fixed?  Both seem to be a series of choices.  And that means a lot for a time traveler.  It also means a lot for a mother.

And it is as a mother with a vocation that I am interested in all of this.  The word "vocation" is one I would not necessarily have used before becoming Catholic.  At root, it means a sort of divine calling--usually to the priesthood and religious life.  But it has been expanded to give value to work in general, or for specific roles--motherhood in particular.  It can be used to validate women who are mothers, and for whom motherhood is their primary vocation--because motherhood absolutely is still a calling!  But it is often not acknowledged as such--often not even acknowledged as a valid lifestyle choice, much less a vocation.  On the other hand, marking motherhood as a vocation heightens the conflict inherent in choosing motherhood in addition to another occupation--particularly an ambitious one.  Because the rhetoric of "vocation" is somewhat absolute--and having dual "vocations" is not generally permissible in the rhetoric of vocation.

Now, this is problematic when you have marriage and motherhood as vocations, though for men, having a vocation as a husband and father is seamless with providing for the  family through work.  The specific type of work isn't generally mentioned as a "vocation"--which is the more secular meaning--except in the case of privileged service professions, like teaching and medicine, interestingly enough.  Really, the concept works best in the context of consecrated religious life, since being a priest, brother, or religious sister does preclude other vocations--marriage and parenthood most obviously--it gets tricky again with the diaconate.  What emerges is that sometimes vocation means something like "work," while other times it means something like "lifestyle," but it always means something like "calling."

It is from this context--and the context of a woman who is a mother, and who feels called to a particular kind of work, from which I am currently estranged, and which seemed much more compatible in many ways with motherhood than what I am now doing (working 40 hours rather than holding an academic teaching position)--that I write about vocation.  So when Claire mentions her competing vocations, and laments that she once experienced a unified identity, I take note:

Once I had thought I was whole—had seemed to be able to love a man, to bear a child, to heal the sick—and know that all these things were natural parts of me, not the difficult, troubled fragments into which my life had now disintegrated.  (107)

Perhaps predictably, we return to the (romanticized) difference in life between the 20th Century and the 18th.  And while part of this is no doubt Jamie, part of it is also the seamlessness of existence in the  (romanticized) 18th Century--which Claire only gets to experience because she is married to Jamie.  I doubt that Dougal McKenzie would have permitted such freedom, or enabled such unity.  And yet, Jamie epitomizes his age for the reader.  There is passion and vitality, there is not time for anxiety, because survival is the first priority.  And so Claire enjoys a more unified existence.  And so in the 20th Century, she throws herself into medicine, in order to recover a sense of purpose if she can't recover the wholeness.  It is hardly a surprise that there are bumps, but the consolations are what elevate Claire's work to a calling:

“Frank was right, in a way, though. It isn’t necessarily easier if you know what it is you’re meant to do— but at least you don’t waste time in questioning or doubting. If you’re honest— well, that isn’t necessarily easier, either. Though I suppose if you’re honest with yourself and know what you are, at least you’re less likely to feel that you’ve wasted your life, doing the wrong thing.”  (110)

Such is the epitome of "vocation."

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.