"American Girl"

30 August 2019: The soundtrack to a pretty cool night...

The Coquette and Depression

29 August 2019: "I would fly to almost any resort, rather than my own mind. What a dreadful thing it is to be afraid of one's own reflections, which ought to be a constant source of enjoyment!" --Eliza Wharton in Hannah Webster Foster's The Coquette

I am teaching The Coquette again in my ENGL 346 class. On this read-through I am struck by Eliza's "melancholy" and how much it reads like our modern conception of depression. This spoiler is about 220 years old, but basically, she kind of wastes away until she dies. Very 18th/19th century in a literary sense, but also not a bad description of what it must feel like to be so very depressed.

Back at it...

28 August 2019: Today really felt like a "back at it" day. Taught the four classes. Held three office hours. Met with my practicum students. Met with the Sigma Tau Delta president. Enjoyed the first Wednesday Lunch Group of the semester. Got to the office at about 8:00 a.m. Left at 7:00 p.m.

A bit exhausting, a lot overwhelming, but also pretty good. One step forward, I hope...

"At a Days Inn in Barstow, California"

27 August 2019: This poem has sat in my inbox for over three months. That happens sometimes with a poem-of-the-day email in which the poem moves me, but I am not sure what to do with it. I leave it there, re-reading it every once in a while. And sometimes, finally, I post it here.

I re-read this one when I was Massachusetts this summer, traveling and thinking about how lonely it could be. I also thought about those words of pseudo-encouragement on the box: "Life is hard / not unbeatable."

It also seems worth sharing what the poet said about it, included in the email: “This poem is from a series I’ve been working on of poems set in motels across America. My hope in these poems is to explore questions of travel, distance, intimacy, and connection when one is passing through a place in the vast American landscape. This poem is also about grief, particularly the grief of losing a loved one to suicide, which in my experience, over 20 years since my mother’s death, is an ongoing and, in some ways, ever-changing journey.”

First day...

26 August 2019: The first day of the Fall 2019 semester is in the books and it was...fine? Four good classes filled with good students.

I just have memories of feeling more excited and energized on previous first days. But maybe I am mis-remembering.

And maybe I am awfulizing (to borrow a term I learned from my psychologist sister) because I was counting on being back in session to fix things. But that was perhaps a bit foolish.

Because classes or no classes, the stuff is still there and it still needs working out. Got a crystal clear reminder of that. Oh well.

One indisputably bright moment: this evening I treated myself to an episode of Derry Girls (really trying to pace myself, but there's only one more left!). One scene in particular brought back the never-quite-gone-teenager inside me. What a terrific show this is!

Helping helps...

25 August 2019: Helped some friends with some low-intensity, not at all laborious moving today. They were very kind and thankful, but honestly, I feel like they did me a favor. It's good to feel useful. And it makes me feel good to help people who I care about. Win-win for a Sunday.

Late Summer-Time Achievement: Unlocked!

24 August 2019: Today was a good day. Saw my Roanoke friends (albeit briefly) at Jane's b-day party and then made it to the Suns game and got a Mike Mussina bobble-head. The line was so long (and we got there kind of early!) that it was a bit close, but I got one. The weather was gorgeous. The Suns won. I spent the day with people I love.

Today was a good day. :)

Convocation 2019

23 August 2019: Gave a speech today at opening convocation. I've been thinking about what to say since they first asked me to do it in April. Lots of thinking about my own first year in college. That's been kind of fascinating.

Anyway, it's done and I think it went okay. And now it really does feel like we are almost ready to hit play on this new semester. Feeling ready...

I see you...

22 August 2019: Wesley, ever present when I get ready in the morning. Someone else likes to pretend she doesn't care. But girl, I see those feets...

Getting closer...

21 August 2019: I am pretty convinced that what might help jolt me out of my funk is simply getting back to a normal teaching schedule. And it won't be long now. Today my favorite colleagues were back on campus and just seeing them made me feel better.

Derry Girls

20 August 2019: The other day I realized that Netflix had the second season of Derry Girls. This little show delighted me when I watched season one earlier this year, so having season two show up is pretty exciting. I watched one episode yesterday, but since the seasons are so short, I am trying to be relatively slow with them. (We'll see how that goes...) Right now, just thinking about watching another episode before bed tonight is making me happy.

Happy emails...

19 August 2019: You know what's lovely? When you get an email out of the blue from someone who read an article you wrote and he wants you to know how much he liked it, how it made him rethink some things, and made him want to reread the texts you wrote about. That happened to me today and it's been making me smile every time I think about it.

I am also just touched by the kindness of it. He read the thing, looked up my email address, and took the time to send me the message. It's just so thoughtful.

Sometimes it feels like the Lord reaches out and sends you a nice little sign when you need it.

"Long Way to Fall"

18 August 2019: Kind of a tough day. Up in my office working on another Sunday night, a good way to push through the blues. And this song came on. Felt appropriate, especially as a big storm rolled through. I look out the window in front of me and the sky is black.



Of course, if I turn my head and look behind me out the other window, I can see the sky back there is much brighter. There's a metaphor to read a few ways, I guess.

Thinking back to August '95...

17 August 2019: Spent a lot of time yesterday and today working on the speech I am giving at the opening convocation on Friday. This is the last (non-research) item on my summer to-do list. Although I have been thinking about it and sketching it out in my head for months, I only started drafting yesterday. Right now, I think it's okay. I had my friend Hannah read it and she gave some great feedback. At this point, I am going to focus on fine-tuning and practicing. Should be okay...

More interestingly, working on it has had me thinking a lot about my own first-year experience back in 1995. It was so tough. For years, in fact, even when I was well into working as a teacher, I would still feel a kind of residual anxiety and pain (albeit muted) when I would see students moving in.

I think what I understand now is that back then, I really had no sense of who I was, what I wanted to do, or how I could feel comfortable in my skin. I was also so damaged from a very rough junior and senior year--a major falling out with my best friends, lots of crises at home, and my beloved high school closing down right before my senior year. But the time I arrived at college, I was so vulnerable and insecure. No wonder I struggled.

Twenty-four years later, I know who I am and what I want to do. I think I am pretty good at it.

I am still working on some of the other stuff and might always be.

I wonder if some of the rough spell I am in right now is evidence that in some ways, I haven't come that far.

I realize this isn't the most coherent post...inconclusive and totally all over the place. But it's late and I am tired and maybe it's okay for this post to be this way.

"Had the Vines Budded, Were the Pomegranates in Bloom"

16 August 2019: This poem, by S. Brook Corfman, from the Poem-a-Day email list, fascinates me. I am pretty sure I don't understand it very well (yet?), but its imagery and moves are captivating. I especially love those first few lines, the surprising yet perfect turn they take us on: "My old lover was Catholic and lied to me about the smallest things. Now he’s dying and I’m trying to forgive everyone standing in line ahead of me at the grocery store." So much going on here about interiority and autonomy versus openness and vulnerability...