1100 words...

31 March 2022: Wrote just over 1100 words of the Watanna entry today. A bit slow at times--sometimes 30 or 45 minutes between sentences when I had to walk away for a bit, do something else, but they got written. Also checked off a bunch of other "to do" items. 

Bit by bit...

"because we are so stupid about each other"

30 March 2022: “Maybe we're just born to love and worry about the people we know, and to go on loving and worrying even when there are more important things we should be doing. And if that means the human species is going to die out, isn't it in a way a nice reason to die out, the nicest reason you can imagine? Because when we should have been reorganizing the distribution of the world's resources and transitioning collectively to a sustainable economic model, we were worrying about sex and friendship instead. Because we loved each other too much and found each other too interesting. And I love that about humanity, and in fact it's the very reason I root for us to survive - because we are so stupid about each other.” --Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You? 

I am about a quarter of the way through Rooney's novel and this passage above--which I heard just before pausing the audio book--seemed like a good framing for some of what I've been feeling lately. 

We had a terrific event on campus this evening, a poetry event with one of our fabulous adjuncts and our incoming provost. Our students showed up and were just wonderful. Just one of those moments when I find myself thinking, "People are so beautiful and wonderful, even if everything else is so messed up--and we are the ones messing it up." 

Not much to show for it...

29 March 2022: Today has felt like a very long day. The best part was probably my walk this morning, but it seems so long ago right now. 

I worked all day (more or less), but don't feel like I have a ton to show for it. I had one student conference, but the student was resistant to most of my advice and too much in his own head, psyching himself out. So that was frustrating, even after forty-five minutes of talking. Hammered out a loose outline for my entry on Onoto Watanna, but a thesis is sort of eluding me and I think I've got way too much material. Worked a bit on a bunch of other projects, too. 

Big tasks, little tasks, etc. Usually I feel more accomplished, but not today. I think that's okay, so long as I can feel some real progress tomorrow. 

Guest hosting...

28 March 2022: Guested-hosted trivia at Captain Bender's again tonight, the first time since December. I was dragging--late to bed last night and didn't sleep well and then a long day or work--but I had a good time. The teams were fun and friendly. One even tried to talk me into joining their team next week, which was sweet. 

Drive My Car

27 March 2022: "Those who survive keep thinking about the dead. In one way or another, that will continue. You and I must keep living like that. We must keep on living. It'll be OK. I'm sure we'll be OK." --Yusuke in Drive My Car

What a movie. I finished it today and found myself moved by it, but it's hard to articulate all the reasons why. But the lines above, from near the end, explain quite a bit of it.  

I am posting this before the end of this year's Oscars (already wild, thanks to Will Smith and toxic masculinity), but I really liked this film (and quite a few others in the mix). 

"keep going"

26 March 2022: "What you do when you're not afraid anymore is the same thing you did when when you are: keep going." --Edgar Gomez, High-Risk Homosexual

I finished listening to Gomez's memoir this morning. It's funny and sad and unapologetic. I feel like I learned a lot. And, especially given everything he writes about getting there, I found the last lines--quoted above--quite moving.

Spring webs...

25 March 2022: The fog was heavy over the river this morning, having receded from the land, leaving behind a mist on the vegetation. As I got closer to the river--near Cullison Park--I saw what looked like patches of fluffy snow on the shrubbery. Even closer up, though, and it was clear that they were what I suspected--little spider webs, almost like nets sagging a bit with the weight of the dew. I don't remember seeing so many of these and this particular size before, so they stood out to me. 

In other news, my favorite tree is doing its thing, which makes me happy--a bit of beauty in a long week.

Proposals...

24 March 2022: Today I met separately with three students in my seminar to talk about their critical essay proposals (due tomorrow). Each of them was hung up on an exact thesis, but they don't need that yet--and the assignment sheet is clear about this--just a kind of tentative thesis or even just the critical question they will try to answer. 

So I talked about what a tentative thesis can look like for the proposal--a bit vague, a kind of placeholder--but that that's okay because it's just a proposal and they haven't yet done all of the research, critical thinking, and writing that will flesh out that eventual final thesis. I told them, "When I give this back to you and I have written, 'This will need to be more specific,' that's true, but it isn't a criticism of what you have written here at this moment. It makes sense that it's this way now." 

I will tinker with the proposal prompt for future semesters, making this part a bit clearer and, more importantly, make sure we talk about it in person.

"A Descent into the Maelström"

23 March 2022: "'No one ever will know what my feelings were at that moment.'" --The "old" man in Poe's "A Descent into the Maelström"

I was so pleased with my seminar's discussion of Poe's story today--one of those wonderful cases where the students' response to a text makes me like it more. 

In my preparation for the class, I was struck by the line above, particularly the idea that he is telling the story and has a captive audience (both in the story and actual readers) yet he knows he will not be able to describe what he has experienced. The tale that cannot be fully told. The message that can not be fully conveyed. And, at times, that only makes reader and teller want to try harder or at least hear/say more. 

And one of our program's super-stars kind of floored me with her idea that the story-within-a-story doesn't come back around (we end in the 'inner' story) because the inner story takes over, sweeping the frame into it...like the Maleström. 

Needless to say, once again, the best part of the day was teaching this class--and the 204 class this morning (when we talked about Pound). 

75!

22 March 2022: Happy 75th birthday to this legend! I've always been fond of this picture of us, particularly how she's watching me with affection, even though baby me clearly chewed on that toy and got it all drool-y.

 

And we're back!

21 March 2022: Very busy and long day, but one in which everything went well and several worked-related tasks were very good and even delightful. Of course, teaching my classes fell into the latter category: a terrific discussion Frost's "Design" and "Mending Wall" in ENGL 204 and a much-better-than-I-anticipated discussion of Poe's "Ms. Found in a Bottle" in the seminar. But even things like the Senate meeting went well and were--dare I say?--enjoyable. And I feel like we are actually making progress on some things in Senate, which isn't a guarantee.

So, not a bad way to mark the first day after break. 

The final third...

20 March 2022: Today's the last day of break, so tomorrow marks the beginning of the last third of the semester. That always comes with mixed emotions: the happiness that comes with warmer weather and longer days, the stress of getting everything done (for teachers and students--project/paper preps, advising, conferences with students, and so many other events), the anticipation of summer break, and the bittersweet rituals around commencement. 

Haven't slept very well the past couple of nights and even in just a week, my sleep pattern is off a bit, so tomorrow might be rough, especially combined with a bit of anxiety over everything listed above.

But Call the Midwife is back tonight, along with new episodes of Bob's Burgers and The Great North. And one of  my favorite podcasts just did a watch-along with Troop Beverly Hills, a real delight I hadn't seen before. All of that helps.

So here we go, onto the final third...

"Shepherd Stars"

19 March 2022: One of the coolest things I've done this semester is record the very first "Shepherd Stars" video with one of the best students I've ever taught, Brianna. Just got to see the finished product yesterday. She is amazing and makes me so proud. Always has.

A bit of balance after all...

18 March 2022: Early this afternoon, I heard that the meeting I thought I had at 3:00 had been canceled, so I could have work/campus-free afternoon at least one day during Spring Break. Amy and I went to see Umma, my first time back in a theater since the Omicron variant. (It wasn't a great movie, but Sandra Oh makes everything better.) Then we had an early dinner and headed back to Shepherdstown. The weather is perfect, so I took a quick walk about the block to finish my steps. Now sitting here with the window opening, Wes sleeping on the back of the chair behind me, BabyCat sleeping by the window. Watching Jeopardy! with plans to watch a couple more things before heading to bed. Still quite a few things to knock off my to-do lists, but do feel a bit more energized, at least emotionally, to get them done. 

Not a perfect day or entirely "break-y" break, but it was something.  

So much for balance...

17 March 2022: This Spring Break has turned out to be a real failure for Project Balance. I've gotten a lot done, but just about nothing fun outside of work. Maybe a bit more TV-watching, sleeping in a little. That's it. Been thinking about it on and off all day, especially when I realized there wouldn't even be a full-day that week that I spend away from campus. 

Today also would have been the day to celebrate Bing's 20th birthday. One can't be too upset about not getting to make that milestone, but I do miss him and remember so many of those first nineteen celebrations. 

"The Japanese in America"

16 March 2022: “Sometimes I dream of the day when all of us will be world citizens—not citizens merely of petty portions of the earth, showing our teeth at each other, snarling, sneering, biting, and with the ambition of the murderer at our heart’s core—every man with the savage instinct of the wild beast to get the better of his brother—to prove his greater strength—his mightier mind—the superiority of his color." --Onoto Watanna, "The Japanese in America," p. 177

I've been working on my book's entry on Onoto Watanna (Winnifred Eaton) and boy, is she interesting. The lines above--from the closing of an essay first published in 1907--are striking for a number of reasons. For instance, they make me think of works by her contemporaries like Zitkala Sa or W.E.B. DuBois who also speak of dreams of racial equality. 

But they also stand out to me because--spatially--she spends so much more time on the nastiness (from "showing our teeth" onward) than the dream. She was a Canadian/American with British and Chinese roots who presented herself as Japanese writer, a fraught choice that gave her access and some degree of agency. She knew how to speak to white writers with essentialist notions, exploiting them to sell books and pay her bills. She was, in fact, quite good at it. But those very choices that led to her success must have left her feeling quite cynical at times, which we can see, I think, in those lines above.  

Work Cited

Watanna, Onoto. “A Half-Caste” and Other Writings, edited by Linda Trinh Moser, U of Illinois P, 2003.

Spring Break grading laugh...

15 March 2022: Working through two kind of ambitious (and boring and slightly depressing) Spring Break to-do lists. (Yes: there are two lists.) But making steady progress. And I found myself laughing out loud at this phrase from a paper by one of my seminar students: "intelligent ladies using occult knowledge to outwit death." "Sounds like a cool club," I wrote in my comments. 

Job's "outraged honesty"

14 March 2022: "In the face of all that appears to be in front of the world today, amid all the calamities we are hurtling toward or already enduring, I’ve found no choice but to share Job’s outraged honesty. Job provides a framework for why it’s worth it to keep going." --Abraham Riesman, in this terrific essay about the book of Job

I read Riesman's essay last night and I think it colored both my dreams and my mindset today. As I continue to think about loss, grief, anger, death, injustice--as we have no choice but to do so--there is something rich to be found digging into what he says here. 

Proud sister...

13 March 2022: Had a nice conversation with Erin today, who is leaving her position in academia to join a practice. Proud of her for making a change that feels right (even if it feels bittersweet). Proud of her for doing work that will help children. Proud of her always. 

Go Rams!

12 March 2022: After a really thrilling double-overtime win last night, the women's basketball team lost in a heartbreaker tonight, ending their season. I am so proud of them and how far they went. Watching these games all season was a constant source of distraction and joy during some tough times. Grateful for that and for those young women. 

"precarity feels like a world I live in now..."

11 March 2022: 

"I don't think I understood like precarity, like the being delicate, having my life built, be built on things that are so contingent and it could betaken away. And that maybe precarity is not something we can never really get over. Maybe it's something we have to learn how to live beautifully inside. I did not have that, you know, [laughing] because my life had been relatively durable before and predictable. And I think precarity feels like a world I live in now. And what I love about it is that now I can see it everywhere. And it helps me kind of abandoned some of the vanity of individualism, and be like, “'Oh my gosh, like we all belong to each other because we have to.'” --Kate Bower, in an episode of This is Love

This morning on my walk, I finally listened to this episode of This is Love that I have been putting off listening to because it hits so close to home. I am so deeply worried about my friend and feel so helpless to do anything to help her. And I don't even know how to ask in ways that won't add to her burden. I feel like all I keep saying is, "I am so sorry. This sucks and is so unfair." Was kind of relieved to see that Bower says it's what she wants to hear on her toughest days. 

It's also on my mind that today--the Friday before Spring Break--marks two years since we sent our students home and didn't see them again that semester. 

What have I learned since then? I look over that post from two years ago and think about where I am now and it's not that I see many radically new takes. Rather, everything is deeper and more poignant, the good and the bad. The sadness and anger and hopeless is much deeper. So, too, though, are the wells of joy and love and hope. I tried to articulate that a bit in this post. I think it's why so many posts in the past two years have been about gratitude and surprising, uplifting joy. It's a way to push back against the darkness.

But the darkness pushes back. And I worry and feel so sad about my friend. And so many others. And so much.

And, this morning as my walk was winding down, I stopped and sat on a bench out back of Knutti, listening to the last ten minutes of the episode, letting sunlight shine on me and crying a bit, thinking about what a gift and responsibility love is--both giving and receiving. Everything--everything--seems so fragile. And therefore precious when we find and hold it. So we keep watch and honor it.

I need to wrap this up and make sure my eyes aren't too red because in about 15 minutes, I have to go into my ENGL 204 class and finish our discussion of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." My goodness, what a poem for this day and this precise mood. And then I'll send them off, wishing them a restful break, eager for some respite myself, but also excited to see them come back. 

A bit of decompression...

10 March 2022: Long day with lots of meetings, so it felt good to head to Martinsburg with Amy to have dinner at Finn Thai. Sometimes a good drive, a great meal, lots of conversation just lifts my spirits so much. 

Good timing...one week later...

9 March 2022: He does it again. So consistently, the best parts of my "day-to-day" days are my students and this cat. Both consistently lift me out of whatever bad stuff I am feeling. Both are gifts for which I am so grateful.

Hallway encouragement...

8 March 2022: Left campus before 4:00 today. I was encouraged by a group of our wonderful upper-division students who were gathered in the hallway. 

"I might leave before 4:00 today," I said to them, almost thinking out loud. 

"You should!" one said. 

"Treat yourself!" said another. 

"Go see your cats," said a third. 

Such sweet kids. When I told them I needed to go pick up Wesley's food from the vet before it closed, they were even more encouraging. They are such blessings. 

Pachinko

7 March 2022: "There was consolation. The people you love, they were always there with you, she had learned. Sometimes, she could be in front of a train kiosk or the window of a bookstore, and she could feel Noa's small hand when he was a boy, and she would close her eyes and think of his sweet, grassy smell and remember that he had always tried his best. At those moments, it was good to be alone to hold on to him." --Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

Last night, I finished this book, which has been my bathtub reading for the past month or so. I wept a bit as I read the words above and moved through the closing pages. The way those few phrases about Noa sum him up perfectly for a reader, the way Sunja endures, the way Lee sticks the landing. Amazing. It's been on my mind on and off all day. 

Almost here...

6 March 2022: It's gotten into the 70s here today, so I opened the front window for Wes and Veronica. They almost immediately jumped to sit in it, even looking like they like each other. (She loves him, he [barely] tolerates her.) Wish I had gotten a picture. 

Later, when I got back from working on campus for most of the morning/early afternoon, I sat in the living room, holding Wesley, watching Veronica watch the birds, and just thinking about how spring is almost here. The earliest flowers are out. Others are peeking through. And it will get cold again. Might even snow again before all is said and done on this year's winter. But spring is coming. I sat here and scratched my old boy's neck as he purred and leaned into me. 

Felt filled with so much: gratitude, relief, sadness, uncertainty, and weariness mixed with faith in rebounding energy. 

Accepted Students Day 2022

5 March 2022: How many programs can ask ten students to give up their Saturday mornings and have them ALL say yes without any hesitation? Wish I got a picture of all of them...

800

 4 March 2022: Today marks 800 straight days of at least 10,000 steps. Feels pretty cool!

"Survival Guide"

3 March 2022:

"No matter how old you are,
it helps to be young
when you’re coming to life,

to be unfinished, a mysterious statement,
a journey from star to star." -Joy Ladin, "Survival Guide"

Good timing...

2 March 2022: Feeling a bit overwhelmed and down all of the sudden--and he shows up. What a gift.

"Dear March—Come in—"

1 March 2022: 

"Dear March—Come in—

How glad I am—

I hoped for you before—"

Anticipating/holding on for this spring with white knuckles. So Dickinson's poem feels right for today.