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“You’ve got to build a closet.” ~Mom A few months ago I went to dinner with a sister prof of mine. We talked about one of her latest projects drawn from her research on Octavia Butler, the influential but profoundly unsung writer. I was excited to hear more about Butler’s life, not simply because of my respect for the writer but because of her influence on Black women and other science-fiction writers (Steven King once shouted her out and I have mad respect for King’s craft). My colleague confessed that she had cried while reading Butler’s journals that past summer. Butler’s journals contained in-the-moment accounts of crippling poverty and overwhelmingly heavy ambition. Like many African American families, the Butlers had migrated from Mississippi to Los Angeles with the hopes of making a better life only to be welcomed by the reality of having to make due with scraps. For Butler, making due (or is it do?) meant watching the family dog suffer with a pellet in his leg because they didn't have the money to pay for a trip to the vet. It also meant suffering through the physical and emotional pain of dental issues because paying a dentist wasn’t as urgent as paying a light bill. What a high cost of living… Coincidentally, making “it” was the even heavier burden in Butler’s life. A few weeks ago, I read a facebook story about Butler’s dedication to her craft. To say she was serious about it is an understatement. The only contemporary parallels I can offer for women as focused, self-sacrificing, and articulate about the career they want come in the forms of Serena Williams and Beyonce. Butler was intentional. Yet, according to my sister prof, Butler was also depressed. She struggled with the disease while waiting for the publication of her first novel. The wait to make “it” was just that heavy. The irony of having that conversation then – the night after I had experienced one of my biggest professional failures – is not lost on me. Without going into many details, let’s just say that the keynote I delivered days before did not go well. Scratch that, if I could find an explosion gif, I’d include the visual here. Despite the work that I’ve completed recently (and I have completed a fair bit), I didn't trust that my existing work fit in that conversation I had been invited to join because I’ve been waiting for some sign that what I do is legible to the field where I work. Yes, I know that sometimes you have to create the work you want to read. I also know that my professed faith should make me better able to believe in what I do not see. But, I am human and I am fallible and I get frustrated with how long things take. It has been hard to wait when you hear yourself wonder, what happens if no one reads your work, or they (and by they, you mean people you respect in your field) don’t consider it _____ enough or _____ enough (insert your discipline of rigor barometer of choice)? Waiting is heavy. Waiting in fear is heavier. You may ask why waiting has been hard for me. The answer is because I eventually want to talk about “why” questions. Even though, I do actually care deeply about the practice of teaching writing and there is no other professional identity that I means as much to me as that one, I am not yet at the stage of developing pedagogies or anything like that just yet. Books and talks that explore why conditions happen and what they mean can be a hard sell sometimes. In those instances, folks don’t want things to get too specific, ideological, off-putting, or risky. Addressing why gets you classified as “too political” by those who see themselves in the trenches doing the hard work. Why based discussions can seem too out of touch and not broad enough for the real day-to-day realities of people struggling. Isn’t it funny how something can be abstract and political at the same time? I swear… Pursuing why can be quite lonely. At this moment, it means that I am not testing out or creating pedagogy when that seems to be what my field privileges. Rather, I’m attempting to understand practices and conditions that shape the mindset of students before they even get in the classroom. It means that I am not setting up studies about what students write when I know that we need those studies. Instead, I’m theorizing attitudes about community participation and why literacy is so important to these groups. It means that I’m not yet talking about classroom assessment. Nope. I’m trying to name the ways people assess the behaviors of individuals in their communities and how those assessments position certain people (Black women in this instance) to over invest in education, self-help, or sermons, etc. just so they can be read as valuable or well. I deeply respect the scholars who are able to publish in the journals of my field with bold and unflinching critiques (there are some), but they are don't appear there enough. Instead, neutrality is still a large paradigm and while, neutrality is safe, to borrow a phrase from Beverly Moss’s wonderful book, A Community Text Arises, I need it “brought to [me] in a cup [I] can recognize.” In other words, I need to see me. The need to see yourself, to recognize your likeness, and to be legible are not mutually exclusive, but it can make for unnecessary work. When the time came for me to prepare for that keynote address, I felt a need to produce something new when what I had was enough. Even as I was working on my talk, I could feel that I was devoting too much time to it (I know there is a blog post to be written about instinct and trusting your gut, but one thing at a time). Even worse was the way this recognition came back to me as I listened to my colleague introduce me and I lamented the time I had wasted slicing up an old article and a new one in a way that, ultimately, did a disservice to both works and to me. Had I given this bad talk on the road I might have been able to toss the regret out the window on the way back, but I didn’t. My colleagues gave me a great opportunity to show the work I’ve done in front of my peers and I … flopped. Fortunately, I have a wise mom. She listened to me explain how heavy waiting is and how it can zap your self-confidence. Then she listened to me lament my mistakes. She waited while I talked about hoping for another shot and then she said, “yeah, you psyched yourself out. It happens. No shame there.” Then she gave me a new philosophy on writing: “You’ve got to build a closet. Treat your writing just like that. Put together a few outfits that make you look good so that when you get invited some place, you can just pull that outfit out and show off. Even if that outfit is old, there's a good chance those people haven’t seen it. They’ll think it’s great and you’ll feel comfortable” She is right. I am enough. Consider this a draft of my closet blueprint.
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"I am persuaded. I'm gonna be all that you created me to be... I'm gonna help someone along the way." Tweet, "I Was Created for This"
This epigraph is from the last song on the forthcoming CD Charlene from one of my favorite artists, Tweet. The song's lyrics describe Tweet's realization that singing is part of the reason she was created. She's writes about pouring herself out in song and telling her story so the creator can "get glory." With the acoustic guitar and her voice, the song - like many of her songs - is simply beautiful. When I downloaded the song on Wednesday, I didn't know how much the lyrics would resonate with me by the time I sat down on Saturday afternoon to write that post. On Wednesday, I was copyediting book chapters at a snail's pace and struggling with the new article I'm trying finish and submit by the end of this month. I was also gathering thoughts for a keynote address that's coming in few weeks and mulling around final ideas for a dialogue I planned and would coordinate Friday night. No, I thought as I listened to the song. "I am not created for this. Not this stress. Not this level of insecurity. Not this level of frustration." Nope. Not the kid! By the time Friday morning came and I began to shift my attention to the dialogue happening that night, the significance of the lyrics began to shift. It was so easy to plan that dialogue. It was if that opportunity enabled me to do everything that I try to do in my classes. So, for clarity purposes, you should know that the dialogue was part of a series of dialogues my church has sponsored taking up matters of race for this year's Black History Month. I was invited to join the planning committee because one of the organizers read my book review of Dr. Richardson's memoir and figured that I could offer some insight about big social issues. When the time came for me to pitch my session, it was easy - Black Women's Mental Health. I mean... I do research rhetorics of healing. Why not translate those criticisms into something generative? And so, I reached out to three colleagues at my institution; a psychologist, a public health researcher who, among other things, studies depression in African Americans, and a social worker and therapist who uses Black feminism as a way to promote healing. I asked the psychologist to present on risk factors that threaten Black women's wellness, the public health research to explain how depression manifests within the lives of Black women, and the social worker/therapist to give an exercise on interventions. My work was to frame the session and to develop the curricula. It came quite easily. There were at least 40 people in attendance and I got a number of follow up messages telling me how much people needed that information. That's when I knew... I was created to do that. I was created to help people have the information they need that improves their lives. I was created to help people discern quality instruction from its opposite. I was created to teach and to write and to pour out the good news of discernment. I am fully persuaded that there are no mistakes on my journey thus far. ~I have spoken Since I'm currently working on a challenging new piece, I've decided to post this blog entry from February 2011.
When the first method you go to is not your own >So, I’m working on an essay revision this week. It’s one that I’ve taken entirely too long to do, but, in my defense I have three – somewhat – valid reasons to situate against the procrastination and fear of rejection that has kept me from finishing this. The first concerns the figure about whom I write. She’s shown up in my dreams lately. Twice. The first time she appeared as a spectator in the crowd of a basketball game. As I walked in to take my seat, she stood up and asked me if I was finished. No pressure? Unfortunately, all I had was excuses as an answer. Not cool. In the second dream, we were a team in some kind of scavenger hunt. She seemed really cool in that dream; not intimidating at all. After the second dream, I decided that I have to stop working on writing that involves figures near bedtime lest Madea or T.D. Jakes show up in my dreams. Spooky. A side note though. My dreams about this figure has led me to see how much I value the approval of folks that I consider elders or mentors. I won’t go so far as to call myself a people pleaser, but gaining the approval of the folks I work with and or respect has always been important to me. I want to do right by them. These tendencies are inspire and complicate my work. I always see rhetorical activity at home, so I look at the teachers, preachers, and figures that I’ve come into contact with the most as the site of my work. I aim to figure out what they’re doing as a way of honoring them; a show and tell kind of gesture that says to the field “see how neat the rhetorical practices are of Black women teachers, preachers, blogs,” etc. The challenge in being a Black feminist is that I know I have to critique at home and that’s the work I’m still trying to do. Where this figure is concerned, the challenge feels great because I’ve seen what happens when people have tried and failed to incorporate her work into histories adequately. They get spanked. The second thing that keeps me from finishing it is my sense that I’ve sent this piece to the wrong journal. There was a notorious backlog for the journal I wanted to send this piece to when I first considered submitting it. At the time I was a grad student preparing for the job market and didn’t think I could spare the time involved with submitting to that journal, so I sent it to my second-choice journal thinking that I’d receive feedback faster. I did. Ironically, one of the readers instructed me to send the piece to my first choice journal because the content of the piece speaks directly to an important historical moment within my field. Revising for the second journal has been muy difficil because it has forced me to shift my thinking about this piece. I’d like it to be a recovery of a figure’s rhetoric that makes a critique of the disciplines historical memory and the narrow ways Black women’s activists work is taken up recognized and incorporated into contemporary scholarship. To make it fit for the second journal, I’ve had to think more about purpose and what understanding the rhetorics within Black women’s activism does for broader understandings of the rhetorical campaigns of historically marginalized communities. Totally different argument, right? I think the second argument can be really important… if I can finish it. These two challenges lead me to my third. The framework I want to use to analyze this figure’s rhetoric is so heavily influenced by another scholar’s analytical model that I wonder what, aside from looking at a different site, am I doing that’s different. What do you do when the first method you go to is not your own? How much should you attribute? I guess you go back to work. I’ve said enough here for now. I have spoken Sabbatical is a gift that I didn't realize I needed as badly as I did until it began. For more reasons than I'll share here, I have not treated myself very well during the last five years and the two tenure track positions I've worked throughout that time. Too much caffeine. Too few balanced meals. Too little sleep. Way too little physical exercise - or movement for that matter. You'd think that condition of anemia that I've always struggled with would have made me recognize how bad I was being to myself but it didn't. I did all the things that leave you weak and exhausted.
The last month has been good, though. I visited one of my best friends in California and got to see the Bay. It is as beautiful as West Coasters proclaim. I bought a bike and started cycling. Just yesterday afternoon I took one of those late summer rides that makes Upstate so nice. Seriously, it was 70 degrees, sunny, and breezy. Recently, I discovered the fascinating writings of Marlon James through Audible. His first book John Crow's Devil about the residents of a small Jamaican town overtaken by a charismatic and violent new preacher was a gratifying read for me since it's basically about discernment. I'm on his second book now entitled The Book of Night Women. Written entirely in the vernacular, the book describes a slave revolt through the eyes of an independent woman named Lillith who largely rejects what slavery is supposed to mean for her. As I've said before, the audible experience amplifies characterization so much. Hearing the spoken rationale that some slave owners used to justify oppression is just... Just read it. I highly recommend it. This past weekend I returned from a brief visit with my parents. While I was there, my mom and dad migrated to new smart phones (and I use migrated intentionally because it was quite a leap from their previous phones). As a Mac-evangelist, I had to get up on my Android game fast since neither would consider an iphone. It tickled me to see them doing so much with their phones and it was the coolest thing to get a 7 am text from my daddy that said "Good Morning" today. I am still a daddy's girl. And of course, I'm in the studio working on new stuff. Hah... You know that. For now though, I'm just grateful for this slow jam on the playlist of my life and career.  I posted the picture to the left on my instagram account a few weeks ago. I took it on a rainy Sunday night at the Starbucks closest to my house. There are Starbucks everywhere in the Northeast. The only coffee shop that outnumbers the chain is Dunkin' Donuts, the "H*& of the Northeast" as I like to call it.
The caption for this instagram picture was "fresh out of paragraphs." That night the statement was true. Working on a recommendation letter had exhausted me, not because I felt I had done anything physically exerting that day - it was a Sunday - but because I just didn't have anything else to say. And yet, I felt like I had to go on. I knew who the audience would be. I knew that this student needed this position. I wanted to help them in the best way I could. Writing is so frustrating at times. Some of the other posts I have included on this revived blog talk about my expansive understanding of writing. The irony is that while I love to say that I am a writer, that I teach writing and that I work for an institution where many forms of writing are recognized, my struggles are real. I have SO much to say sometimes that I don't say anything at all. Scope! And then, I hear things like this: "You have revisions to finish!" "That's not a REAL article" "Will it give you a CV line entry." "Does anyone even care about this?" My inner critic is relentless. Two things are helping me mute this critic. The first is my Audible account. I'm currently listening to Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It seems like common sense that the experience of listening would be quite different than reading but I marvel at how differently I understand her book when I hear the dialog in it or he exposition. As a listener, I recognize the nuances of her craft much better. Adichie does so much with characterization. In one sentence she gives some of the most intimate and insightful aspects of a character's personality. Obinze is legible to me. Auntie Ugu seems like someone I know. I even see in D.K. the younger version of some of my students and Adichie's description of him makes me think about my own assumptions when teaching students that were born in Africa but have spent their whole lives in America. Although I wonder how long her sentences actually are, her prose inspires me. What would happen if more academics listened to the prose of creative writers? Surely our rhythm would shift. I want to write in this more conversational way (hence this post). This book's popularity is well-deserved. The other shaking shift is my start in a well-known national bootcamp for faculty. Because a number of my academic friends have completed the program, I was excited to begin. Last Sunday night was the first group call and just as I was sitting there listening and contemplating opening a Word Document to ediit something (who knows what it was), the moderator asked us not to multi-task. It was as though she were sitting right there with me in the home office. One of the lessons I took away was about consistency. Accountability is a good thing. In my small group of strangers, I feel a greater need to report my finished work. Because of this, I've made the effort to go to the library everyday even though I am visiting my parents this week. Arriving by 9 a.m has some perks. One of them is that I am remembering that this is what I used to do, before the year of exams, before the dissertation, before the twenty-five mile commute to campus, before starting at the university where everyone on your side of the hall keeps their doors closed and the construction outside your window has not ceased in three years. This is what I will do. This is what I do. Do. ~I have spoken~ |