Honeysuckles...

31 May 2022: The moment I arrived on campus this morning, I got approached--in the parking lot--about being on a search committee. About an hour later, as I tried to get some work done on my Wilson entry, I got an email asking me to take on another project. So I did what I do when I feel stressed and overwhelmed: I took my walk. Stopped for a moment to smell the honeysuckles along the way. Not a bad way to reset my mind and to honor Walt's birthday. 

"Where I'm Calling From"

30 May 2022: Listened to this episode of The New Yorker Fiction Podcast today while collecting and printing sources for my next two entries. Sherman Alexie (who I guess is quietly back after his scandals?) reads Raymond Carver's "Where I'm Calling From." What an interesting story: engrossing, funny, sad, with memorable characters. Structurally, it's fun, too, with a first-person narrator who gives a lot of space to another character's words. It moves between present and the pasts of multiple characters at multiple points. But you can always follow it (even if you are only paying half-attention at moments as you, for example, print off pdf after pdf...). It ends with hope with hopelessness lurking on the margins, entirely appropriate for a story about addiction and getting sober. 

"The choice is ours, then..."

29 May 2022: “After being ignored for many years, Our Nig has finally found its readers. Now the question remains: how will we, the readers of this book, respond to its appeal for a moral response to an unjust social system? If we respond by saying that these problems are in the past, then we violate Wilson’s achievement even as we celebrate it. The choice is ours, then. When we write our own stories in relation to this book and to our national history, will we write fiction or autobiography? If we are to honor Wilson’s achievement, then perhaps the time for fiction is over” (210).

Working on my Harriet Wilson entry and found the quotation above--from an essay by John Ernest--quite compelling and moving. It's been interesting and rewarding to do a deep dive on the critical conversation around this book. 

Work Cited

Ernest, John. “Losing Equilibrium: Harriet E. Wilson, Frado, and Me.” Harriet Wilson’s New England: Race, Writing, and Region, edited by JerriAnne Boggis, Eve Allegra Raimon, and Barbara A. White, U of New Hampshire P, 2007, pp. 203-211.

Yard work...

28 May 2022: Finished the "spring into summer" weeding, mulching, and planting today and then mowed the lawn. So a lot of yard work today, some of it less than fun that other parts. But it wasn't so bad and the results look great. Entertained by three episodes of The New Yorker Fiction Podcast, too, my "intense yardwork" podcast of choice. 

Still want to get some more work done today, but enjoying a bit of vegging out right now.

Ballet!

27 May 2022: 

[Catch-up post]

Last night, Amy, Betty, and I drove into DC to see our friend Karen's daughter dance with her classmates at the Kirov Academy. Her daughter is exceptional and only 15. But all of these dancers are amazing. Beautiful to watch. 

Still thinking about volcanoes...

26 May 2022: I guess I am still thinking about Dickinson's volcanoes today; about how we can carry so much just below the surface. By the way, earlier this week, I concluded my entry on Ruth Hall with a riff on Mrs. Hall calling Ruth "a smoldering volcano." And that got me thinking not just about Dickinson's multiple volcano poems, but also this post on Larcom. Nineteenth-century women writers (or at least three of them) liked that metaphor.

Today was very quiet: no meetings, no appointments. I spent most of it in my office reading about Harriet Wilson, typing up notes, sending emails, etc. Came home and got some gardening done. Didn't even really talk to many people beyond a few sentences. 

But all day long...so many thoughts and big feelings in my head, some personal and some (for our country) much broader. And a bit of light in the darkness that is worrying about a dearest friend's health--a glimmer of hope. And, along with that, continued and profound meditations about what her friendship has meant to me. What a gift she is. 

Big emotions. Big thoughts and feelings. And such outward quiet. It feels strange but also appropriate, at least for me, for right now. 

I have never seen ‘Volcanoes’ -

 25 May 2022:

I have never seen ‘Volcanoes’ -
But, when Travellers tell
How those old - phlegmatic mountains
Usually so still -

Bear within - appalling Ordnance,
Fire, and smoke, and gun -
Taking Villages for breakfast,
And appalling Men -

If the stillness is Volcanic
In the human face
When opon a pain Titanic
Features keep their place -

If at length, the smouldering anguish
Will not overcome,
And the palpitating Vineyard
In the dust, be thrown?

If some loving Antiquary,
On Resumption Morn,
Will not cry with joy, “Pompeii”!
To the Hills return!

-Emily Dickinson, F165 

The Dickinson Museum's poem of the week. Feels somehow appropriate.

Again and again...

24 May 2022: At least 18 dead children and at least one dead adult.* It doesn't have to be this way, but it will be, again and again. Unfathomably bleak and sad. And infuriating.

*had to go back in and edit this, upping the number of victims. Unbelievable.  

Porch visit...

23 May 2022: After getting some outlining and writing done today, I had a very nice porch visit with Carrie. We hadn't spent any good time together in months and months, so it was nice to just catch up and check in. 

"The Falls"

22 May 2022: "Good God, but life could be less than easy, not that he was unaware that it could certainly be a lot worse, but to go about in such a state, pulse high, face red, worried sick that someone would notice how nervous one was, was certainly less than ideal, and he felt sure that his body was secreting all kinds of harmful chemicals and that the more he worried about the harmful chemicals the faster they were pouring out of wherever it was they came from." --George Saunders, "The Falls"

Listened to this story on The New Yorker Fiction Podcast today while I cleaned the kitchen. I found it quite moving and felt myself relating to Morse and his inner-dialogue. The ending--which Will Mackin and Deborah Treisman say some really smart things about--has been on my mind all day. 

Surprise! It's fun!

21 May 2022: I completed my weekly book goal list early this week--so early that I added some stuff to it and finished those tasks, too. And that made me feel pretty good. 

Today, I didn't do any work on the book even though I could have. I told myself that the new list starts on Monday and that I could take a day off. Instead, I went to Home Depot to get some flowers, mowed the lawn before it got too scorching out there, saw the Downton movie with Amy (which was exactly what you want it to be), did the laundry and am now watching a couple of movies.

I did feel the urge to pick up an article from the great big stack I ready have for my next entry, but I didn't. Here's what I am excited about, though: that urge to pick it up? I wanted to do it because I was excited, not because I felt guilty or stressed. That's a good indicator of the fun I am having with this project. 

Men

20 May 2022: Amy and I saw Men today. What a strange, disturbing, and interesting movie! Some of the moves it made were a bit heavy-handed, but that's okay. I am sure I'll think about it for a while. And I keep putting it into conversation (in my head) with Under the Banner of Heaven, which I've been watching on Hulu. Lord knows we need to be thinking and talking about the damage the patriarchy has and will keep doing. 

"She does not emberes me like other teachers..."

19 May 2022: This whole article is so sad and so infuriating. But this excerpt--a note from one of Nicolette Solomon's students--broke my heart: “Mrs. Solomon is special … very organizd and shes fun. … She does not emberes me like other teachers.” Mrs. Solomon made this student feel safe and secure. How achingly awful that her community could not and would not do the same for her. She's left teaching--the calling she loved, the calling she excelled in--because of a hateful, bigoted law. Dark, dark days...

"we are the only wonderful things, because we can wonder"

18 May 2022: "I can’t believe that all that majesty and all that beauty, those fated and unfailing appearances and exits, are something more than mathematics and horrible temperatures. If they are not, then we are the only wonderful things, because we can wonder." --Willa Cather, talking about the stars, in a letter to her partner, Edith Lewis.

I really enjoyed this piece by Melissa Homestead (fellow SSAWW member!) which included the letter quoted above. It's well worth a read. 

Still works...

17 May 2022: At around 3:00 today, I found myself hitting a wall as I tried to outline my next entry (on Hope Leslie). It was also gorgeous outside and I hadn't been out there since my walk ended a couple of hours before. So...gave the mid-day loop a try, even down to the playlist. And it worked--not perfectly, but by the time I got back, I had decided on a relatively simple approach. Of course, even that got modified and revised as I sketched it on paper and then typed it up, but the important thing is that I got past that wall.

Hopeless-ly

16 May 2022: One of the most delightful sentences I've come across while working on this book: “I wish to argue that contradictions are an inevitable element of Sedgwick’s project and that one cannot separate Hope Leslie from Hopeless-ly” (Fetterley 501). All these years that I've known and studied Sedgwick's book and I only today realized that there's a pun sitting right there.

Work Cited

Fetterley, Judith. “‘My Sister! My Sister!’: The Rhetoric of Catharine Sedgwick’s Hope Leslie.” American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography, vol. 70, no. 3, Sept. 1998, pp. 491–516. EBSCOhost.

Sunday vibes...

15 May 2022: Finished my weekly book goal to-do list, along with some house-cleaning and yard work this weekend. Also submitted everything for the department newsletter. So, a very good week for summer productivity. 

Resisting the urge to get even more work done and instead sitting here with Wes, with the windows open and some post-rain breeze coming in. Action at the bird feeder is really delightful: goldfinches (up to three at once!), a bluebird, cardinals, and a great big woodpecker. Treating myself to Girls5Eva season 2. I also had lunch with my parents earlier and have some leftovers in the fridge. Might not even have to cook tonight. Chill time!

Another one...

14 May 2022: Another mass shooting by a white supremacist (and taken into custody alive). I love this country so much, but my Lord, are we broken, broken, broken. 

Lilac crimes...

13 May 2022: Finally giving into an impulse I've had every spring, I finally snapped off some sprigs of lilac from a bush on my favorite spot on campus. I told myself that the blossoms only have a few days of peak left in them and there are so many that the bush wouldn't miss a few. Just a couple of sprigs made my whole office smell lovely. 

So...I did more crimes and brought some to Hannah for her office 

...and snapped off a few more to bring home. 

Whitman would approve.

The batch I later brought home, sitting in my office window.

"The Ghost in You"

12 May 2022:  

"Whence came it?"

11 May 2022: “…my natural temperament is such that when I wish to do anything I seem to have an instinctive faith that I can do it; whether it be cutting and making a garment, or writing a Greek novel. The sort of unconsciousness of danger arising from this is in itself a strength. Whence came it? I did not acquire it. But the ‘whence? how? whether?’ of our inward life must always be answered, ‘From a mystery; in a mystery; to a mystery.'" -Lydia Maria Child, talking about herself

Still working on my Hobomok entry and just smiled and smiled when I read this passage. All that confidence and tenacity in a young woman in the early nineteenth century!

A bit of relief...

10 May 2022: Will keep it vague, but got a bit of relief today after a long period of wondering and waiting. Not completely done/over yet, but this cloud that's been looming seems a bit less oppressive. 

"One need not be a Chamber..."

9 May 2022: 

"One need not be a Chamber — to be Haunted —

One need not be a House —

The Brain has Corridors — surpassing

Material Place —" 

A lot of time in my own head today (not in good ways), so Dickinson comes to mind.

"deep and unwearied love"

8 May 2022: “There, in that miserable room, lay the descendants of two noble houses. Both alike victims to what has always been the source of woman’s greatest misery— love—deep and unwearied love." --Lydia Maria Child, Hobomok

Working on the Hobomok entry for my book. I am not sure when I last read this novel, but these lines stood out to me on this re-read. 

Commencement 2022

7 May 2022: Was too busy ambassador-ing most of the day to get too many pictures, but graduation was really joyful. Will really miss this group of students (something I say every year because it's always true).

Ambassador Training...

6 May 2022: Graduation Ambassador training today. Ready for the big day tomorrow.

Escape!

5 May 2022: In this, the first week of "break," I felt the need for something fun mid-week. So Amy and I coordinated in advance and blocked out this afternoon. I literally put "Escape!" on my Outlook calendar (but marked that part "private") starting at 2:30. We didn't do anything too crazy--just a movie and dinner in Hagerstown--but it felt good. It felt "earned," too, since I finished a complete draft of my next book entry today and knocked out a letter of recommendation. 

Big picture: this isn't the best version of Operation Balance, but it's a (Summer 2022) start. 

"For the Bird Singing before Dawn"

4 May 2022:  Lovely and moving poem. Feel like I am constantly swinging between this energy and its complete opposite, but so grateful for when I can embrace it and for the folks who make me believe it.

"Some people presume to be hopeful

when there is no evidence for hope,

to be happy when there is no cause.

Let me say now, I’m with them."

Cap decorating

3 May 2022: For the first time since December 2019, I had a group of students come over for a social event. This was just a small group--a handful of our graduating seniors getting together to decorate their graduation caps. It was really lovely, especially since I am so fond of this cohort.

I couldn't (and can't) help thinking about this group of graduates and the world we are handing them, especially given last night's Roe v. Wade news. Strong, smart, and decent women who might not have control of their own bodies. Attacks on queer people, including children. Systemic racism and so many denying it. A broken economic system. A planet on the verge of climate catastrophe. It's too much. It's so much to think about that I literally stopped on my walk this morning to just...stand there for a moment.  

They didn't seem all that discouraged this evening, but I also didn't push them on it. Let them decorate their caps and get through Saturday. 

Pink sidewalks

2 May 2022: That time of year when you come upon the bittersweet and fleeting beauty of pink sidewalks, themselves the echoes of another bittersweet and fleeting time. 

Everything Everywhere All At Once

1 May 2022: What a fun and moving movie this is. I found myself laughing and gasping and--of course--getting choked up time and again. One of my favorite lines: "There is always something to love. Even in a stupid, stupid universe where we have hot dogs for fingers, we get very good with our feet."