New record...

31 July 2020: Had a zoom meeting today that ran over four hours. Lordy, lordy, lordy. Give me strength! Mentally exhausted. 

The Cove

30 July 2020: I've been getting so much more "reading for fun" done lately. The stacks of books on the tables by my bed are actually getting shorter (though they are still so big). Last night, I finished Ron Rash's The Cove, which sat there for at least five years (maybe more like eight!). 

I love Rash, so it was great to dip back into his voice. The Cove is a strange little book (like many of Rash's novels), darker than you expect even when you expect it, but just so beautiful. In a way, that's the message of the book: the world is dark and bleak, full of pain and trials, but beauty is there, moments of light and love and grace. 

A couple hours of normal...

29 July 2020: Went to see my parents, who at their Martinsburg house, with Colin. Erin and the girls were there, too. (Hadn't seen the parents since late February or March.) We stayed outside and I didn't hug my parents--so scared of getting them sick--but for about 2.5 hours, it felt like a normal summer of sorts. Ate a hamburger cooked on the grill, chatted, laughed, fished a bit. Not bad at all.

"But You Know I Love You"

28 July 2020:

"And if only I could find my way back to the time
When the problems of this life
Had not yet crossed my mind
And the answers could be found in children's nursery rhymes
I'd come runnin' back to you..."

After a long day, in the midst of lots of unpleasantness, Alison Krauss can make me feel better, even if it comes with a sort of muted sting.

Writing, writing, writing...

27 July 2020: Got a decent bit of writing done today, working on a conference paper about Dorothy Allison's "River of Names." Felt good to be productive and working on "normal" things.

These Fevered Days

26 July 2020: Really enjoyed Martha Ackmann's These Fevered Days. It helped me understand Dickinson in new ways, particularly her ideas about religion, her everyday life, and her connection to the world around her. Though I had long rejected the narrative about her being so cut off from the world, Ackmann made it clear just how connected she was. And Ackmann's prose is just lovely and readable and moving. The last pages--chronicling Dickinson's death--had me in tears.

This afternoon, I am typing up notes and find myself lingering over Letter 173, from Emily to Sue, circa 1854. Here Emily is sad, possibly resigned/possibly making one final plea over their relationship, no doubt aware that she is asking so much--that she is too much--but can't/won't help herself. And she realizes the choices she's making/the person that she is (that she insists on being?) will be rather solitary. It's so familiar to me, I kind of have to look away.

(Ackmann shows that the "go or stay" language Dickinson uses her is short-lived--that the women continue their relationship, though there continues to be some unspoken fear of another rupture. But look at this one, from late in Dickinson's life: she's still right there, no matter what.)

Six years...

25 July 2020: Not much to say except that he's been on my mind all day.

Pain and loss seems everywhere these days. I guess the one thing I am thinking on this anniversary is that I am also weirdly a bit grateful to have had this lesson in grief and can use it to be more compassionate and empathetic to others wrestling with it. It's a skill-set no one wants but that it would be selfish and wasteful not to put to use.

Our refuge and our strength...

24 July 2020: Tough day. (Wish I could/would stop saying that.) But Bishop Eaton is such a welcome presence and I am grateful for her message here.

Opening Day...

23 July 2020: Weirdest Opening Day ever. Stanton hits a two-run homer in the first inning and it just sits there in the stands. No one to chase it down for a souvenir.

I kind of can't believe we have MLB back. It feels strange and risky. And at the same time, I am so glad to be watching it.

New email buddy...

22 July 2020: Another tough and weird day today, but then Erin texted to say Krista had a new gmail (for kids) account and was sending me a message. Holy cow, did her little note (telling me about what she watched on Netflix after I sent them my password) make me smile.

Starting early...

21 July 2020: Ordinary people joke about starting their drinking earlier in the day when they've had a rough one. I ain't very ordinary because when I got home today at around 5:00, I was like, "What will make me feel better immediately?" and opted for an episode of Nailed It, something I usually save to shut my mind off before I go to bed. Now I've switched to The Babysitter's Club, which is so delightful. It's all helping...

Patti

20 July 2020: When I was a kid, I'd see my cousin Patti maybe once or twice a year. She was about 15 years older than me (she was my parents' flower girl in their wedding) and that chasm is a bit awe-inspiring for a kid. She was a grown-up or on her way to being a grown-up. She lived on her own, dated, and had a whole independent life that I caught only glimpses of. She always seemed so confident and pretty. She was effortlessly cool. 

Later, she got married, had three daughters, and built a life that included happiness and trials. She loved her family and her friends and animals. In 2005, she had a liver transplant, with the help of a living donor. That gift gave her 15 more years with her family. She got to see her first grandchild.

Patti died last night. It was too soon and I am filled with such sadness for Kenny and her girls and my Aunt Kathi. How do you begin mourning such a loss and go on? People do it all the time, but each time, it seems like such a monumental and impossible task. That absence that fills a room...

I talked to my dad last night and he sounded so tired. He was saying all the right and sweet things--how he tried to comfort his sister, how Patti's with "the angels" now. Of course, he's buried his own son, so he speaks from the kind of experience no one wants to have, much less share with their sibling.

As I think about it now, I realize the last time I saw Patti might have been at my brother's funeral. Saturday will mark six years since his death. Is that a long time? Yes and no. It's the blink of an eye and feels like forever.

So much loss and death lately. So much need for healing.

"I Come From Love"

19 July 2020: Kind of a rough and strange day here, but I listened to this really good episode of the Poetry Off the Shelf podcast on my walk this morning. It's a lovely conversation between host and guest. Nikky Finney's discussion of her work, her father's love for her, and the importance of depicting Black joy is just so moving.

"Read, my child, read..."

18 July 2020: So sad to hear about John Lewis's death. A true American hero and an inspiration. I keep thinking of March, which I teach in my YA literature class. I think about his noting that he's the last living speaker from the March on Washington. I think about the little boy who preached to his chickens. I think about the powerful scenes where the protesters train themselves for confrontations with hatred and violence. I think about him sitting in the audience at Obama's inauguration. What a life. What a legacy.



So many deaths and losses lately...

"...it won't bite"

17 July 2020: "I am Judith of the Apocrypha, and you the orator of Ephesus. That's what they call a metaphor in our country. Don't be afraid of it, sir, it won't bite." --Emily Dickinson, in an 1850 letter to George H. Gould

Working on my Dickinson seminar prep and, boy, did that letter make me chuckle. (You can read the whole thing here.)

"Dancing in the Moonlight"

16 July 2020: In the midst of a long day here.

Thinking/thought about, working/worked on fall teaching prep, a conference paper, an important ad hoc committee assignment. Participated in two Zoom meetings related to Shepherd stuff (one of which lasted three hours, my longest uninterrupted Zoom meeting to date, I think).

And then there's this thing called life outside of work, which has me grieving for my friend Amber, who emailed to say her grandmother died. Her grandmother was a lovely woman, someone I loved and who was always very kind to me.

And I am following updates from NY, where a family member is fighting for her life as I type this.

And, like every day since mid-March, nothing else is certain.

So...a long day. Cue this number, popping up on Pandora. I almost felt compelled to get up and dance it out. Two-and-a-half minutes of thinking about better times in the past and, I hope/pray, to come.



I know this is a blog-post genre, trope I go back to--"a lot on my mind but this thing made me feel better"--but it works and it is, I promise, always sincere.

"Diabolic"

15 July 2020:

"How they say they love her
And how they look at her
Is what Phillis observes;
Like she’s the hole in the pocket
After the money rolls out." --Cornelius Eady, "Diabolic"

The poem Eady is writing about here--Wheatley's "On Being Brought from Africa to America"--is one of my favorite to teach. Eady's work is a terrific contemplation of what Wheatley must have thought in her very complicated and circumscribed world, where she was repeatedly fed conflicting ideologies and still managed to create powerful, lasting, and fundamentally American art. (Love that Eady calls "On Being Brought" "one of the most American poems I think we have.")

Two or Three Things...

14 July 2020: "Aunt Dot was the one who said it. She said, 'Lord, girl, there's only two or three things I know for sure.' She put her head back, grinned, and made a small impatient noise. Her eyes glittered as bright as sun reflecting off the scales of a cottonmouth's back. She spat once and shrugged. 'Only two or three things. That's right,' she said. 'Of course it's never the same two things, and I'm never as sure as I'd like to be.'" --Dorothy Allison, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

Works for me...

13 July 2020: "Her so nice!" --my nephew Evan's opinion of me, according to my sister. This remains a consistent descriptor from him towards me. I called to ask about birthday gift ideas for him when she shared this.

At the end of a long day with some moments of real frustration, I'll take it.

"Say in a long time..."

12 July 2020: "When he took his hat for the last time that day, he promised the poet he would come again sometime. 'Say in a long time,' she mischievously answered, 'that will be nearer. Some time is nothing.'" --Brenda Wineapple, White Heat

The passage above, from Wineapple's narrative of Higginson and Dickinson's first visit, stood out to me. Dickinson seems keenly aware of how time (and promises about time) often work. In these fraught and strange days where time continues to confound me, I think about some of the last "normal" days, when I told people (students, colleagues, and myself) that we'd see each other again soon without knowing just how long it would be. How could I have been prepared for how "some time" has become "a long time" with no end in sight? 

White Heat

11 July 2020: "The Reverend Wadsworth, an oddball of the first order, thrilled parishioners with his overheated theatrics: he had a trapdoor cut into the pulpit floor so he might appear and disappear with having to mingle with his congregation..." --Brenda Wineapple, White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Finally getting around to reading this book, which has sat on one of my nightstands for years, in preparation for a seminar on Dickinson this fall. So far, it's great read, in no small part for the lovely (and weird!) details like the one quoted above.

I am not surprised, since I've enjoyed Wineapple's writing before.

Skin

10 July 2020: "Literature is the lie that tells the truth, that shows us human beings in pain and makes us love them, and does so in a spirit of honest revelation." --Dorothy Allison, Skin

Working my way through Dorothy Allison's collection of essays. It's quite eclectic and provides interesting insights literature, writing, class, sex, and feminism (including its relationship to the lesbian/queer community in the 70s-90s). Those last couple of topics feel like a history lesson--one that I didn't know that much about.

What continues to be so significant to me is Allison's faith in literature and writing; her belief that they open doors to understanding, empathy equality, and empowerment.

Morning walks...

9 July 2020: “When we walk, we are brought back to ourselves again, immersing our awareness in the body and all its sensitivities, creating space for the mind to breathe and explore and play” --Andrew Forsthoefel, Walking to Listen

Finished this engaging book today and circled back to the start, typing up notes for this year's Common Reading Essay Contest prompts and thinking about how I might use it in my ENGL 204 class. Today was also a day that I got up early and took my walk before starting the "work" part of my day. While I'll never be a fan of getting up early, morning walks can be transformative, a quiet, meditative way to begin the day. (Plus, nighttime walks--the only hot summer day alternative--are more likely to be gloomy, I think?)

Life After Life

8 July 2020: “No point in thinking, you just have to get on with life. We only have one after all, we should try and do our best. We can never get it right, but we must try.” --Kate Atkinson, Life After Life

Carrie gave me this book as a Christmas gift with a note attached that I imagine I will treasure for many years. Among other things, she said the main character reminded her of me. Having (finally) read it and fallen in love with it, the comparison--far too flattering--makes me smile.

Walking to Listen

7 July 2020: "And then there was Addie, my Mississippi mother, and Allen, the doomsday alligator rancher. Of course, all these people were far more than the titles I've just given them, but that's taxonomy finding some kind of order in the chaos and classifying it. Why bother, in this case? Because then an amalgam of indistinguishable faces splinters off into hundreds of millions of fragments--individual human beings. The closer you look, the more varieties you find, and any goat-and-sheep dichotomy starts to look completely absurd. Americans become Mississippians, who become alligator ranchers, who become Allen, who likes hunting in the swamp on his airboat at dusk and watching Deadly Women Tuesday Marathon; who believes in goats and sheep, and probably thinks you're a goat; and who feeds you a huge breakfast in the morning anyway." --Andrew Forsthoefel, Walking to Listen

The fifty or so pages I read of Walking to Listen today really sold me on what the book is doing and it power and beauty. That passage above ("goats" and "sheep" are a reference to end-times theology) especially moved me. I've got about 150 pages left and am eager to see what's in store for Andrew.

"had something in them break..."

6 July 2020:

I'm curious if other people have had something in them break the last few weeks, where you realize "normal," or even a rough approximation of it is gone for a good long while. We've always known that at some level but I feel it intensely and viscerally right now.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 6, 2020

Really feeling this today and am grateful to have someone else say it out loud.

When you live alone (on top of a really hard year emotionally) and this crisis has taken away so many things that make you happy, the idea that this thing has no end in sight? The things that got me through hard times this past year--teaching, my students, my colleagues, meeting up with friends, movies, trivia, baseball--they are all gone or dramatically different. So what do I do now? [There are answers: reading, writing, the cats, treasuring my walks now more than ever.] [And it doesn't help when I make stupid mistakes in the limited interactions I do have with people. Kicking myself so many times for the things I say, for my ridiculousness at times, for my lack of chill and yearning for more.]

It's overwhelming and just so sad. I haven't paid nearly the same price as so many others and I know that everyone's situation is difficult. I am, and continue to be, insanely blessed. I remind myself of that when I can. I can keep working on it and on me. Channeling my inner Burr here: "I am the one thing in life I can control."

But here's what really hurts and gives me that visceral reaction Hayes alludes to--and I know it's what most normal, decent people are thinking of in these moments, too: all of the other people who are already suffering and will continue to suffer who aren't as lucky. So much hurt already and so much more to come. And our leadership has utterly failed us, with no sign of correcting the course.

Passing through...

5 July 2020: Saw Tara, Jeff, and the kids for a bit as they were passing through this way. Lovely to see them. Not getting to hug was sad, but maybe a small sacrifice to feel a bit safer.

Fireworks...

4 July 2020: Stepped outside tonight just as a pretty impressive set of amateur fireworks went off in the far distance. Stood in the road and watched them for a bit. Found myself wiping away tears.

Blueberries...

3 July 2020: Grateful for a bit of normalcy and fun.

Another "submit" completed...

2 July 2020: Just hit "submit" (well, technically "send") on another item on my summer writing to-do list: a book review of Mark Twain in Context. I had in mind to get it done by July 1, but I'll still count this as a win since a) it's done (duh), b) one day ain't a big deal, c) I've had a ton of extra work dumped on me, and d) I also completed another abstract that wasn't even on my list.

So...clicking along so far on the professional development list. I think the next steps will be a bit harder: they're longer, more substantial. But still, as I said above, I'll take the wins when I can get them.

Also hit "send" on a kind of important letter today. Trying to get something fixed that I should have fixed a long time ago (an equity pay issue). Fingers/toes crossed on that one. Feels good to stand up for myself.

"On Becoming an American Writer"

1 July 2020: "Write for your dead. Tell them a story. What are you doing with this life? Let them hold you accountable. Let them make you bolder or more modest or louder or more loving, whatever it is, but ask them in, listen, and then write." --Alexander Chee, "On Becoming an American Writer"

I sure took my time (over 5 months!) getting through Alexander Chee's excellent collection of essays, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. A wild semester got in the way a bit, as did reading up to three other books at the same time, but I also enjoyed pacing it out. It's almost like I read it in thirds, each separated by a month or so. Each essay was worth savoring. For instance, in late May, on my walk the morning after I read one about Chee growing roses outside one of his apartments, I noticed every rose bush in my neighborhood in a new way.

The excerpt above, from the book's remarkable final essay, strikes me (much like the Thomas essay I wrote about on Monday) as incredibly useful and even prescient in times such as these. Again, like Thomas, Chee wrote his book in part in response to the anxiety/despair in the face of Trumpism and the hope/resistance/drive to go on pre-pandemic. Take everything they (and you) said and felt back then and add some exponents. And yet, still these essays speak to me, tell me to keep going, tell me to hold on and fight.