Here I am at the kitchen table, Absurdist Tot in daycare, and I'm ignoring the print-outs of the two different documents I have on this dumb conference paper. AL is even at the grocery store doing the shopping. I should be working. Or working out. I'm just so tired. Spent. I spent a couple hours writing some emails about this elective I'm teaching -- and now I just want to lie down and count the spots on the ceiling.
In good news, my sister wrote and explained to me that she totally understands my coming to the wedding without AL and AT. She totally gets it. That's a load off my shoulders. Though maybe it hasn't sunk in yet. Forget the folks. If they can't appreciate that my focus/commitment is to my little Absurdist Family, then sod them. They might make gestures toward wanting to see AT, but they have never followed up with Skyping to see him or asked me questions about him or anything. I'm hurt. And concerned that he'll not have as many people in his corner as he ought to, which puts more pressure on me to compensate/surround him with other people who love him, but right now he's fine. He doesn't care about anyone else, only that I don't leave the room even to go to the bathroom. (Oh how he cries!) So whatever.
Can I tell you a secret? Last night I was thinking of scholarship as this little game I play in order to stay employed. By the clear light of day though that statement feels more like a lie, like scholarship has some importance. Whatever my scholarship's intrinsic worth to my field, department, world, it's also a necessary part of my job and therefore contributes to AT's well-being and so it follows that it's.worth.getting.done. Especially when one's conference is in less than two weeks. Somehow this argument is not so motivating.
Maybe I should read something in the conversation to which I'm responding.
Maybe ten minutes of lying down before I dive into this conference paper is in order.
*******
I took a walk, and it occurred to me that the hard part of this conference paper for me is writing in sentences. When I think of standing up there in front of people, I just can't imagine reading at them about this stuff. I just want to be more casual, more conversational. I wonder if this is because I just don't feel that this stuff is scholarly enough. Or maybe I just am having trouble believing in scholarship and scholarly discourse right now. Or maybe I'm just so comfortable with this stuff (I wrote this original draft for this about five years ago) that I want to talk it. I don't know. I don't know what this means. But I'm going to go write longhand for a little while, then workout. I picked up a bunch of pinecones out there. Can it be possible that I'm not ready for spring?
1 comment:
I've been looking at your post for a day or so now, thinking that I was having the same feeling, but not quite able to articulate it: the combination of the sun coming out, the mercury rising, of teaching getting slowly caught up and research demands impingeing.
This is the spring thaw, though, and as the ice floes begin to crack apart and we rub the hibernation from our eyes, the world is going to feel foggy, and the sunlight is going to hurt a bit.
So, you know, give yourself time to count the spots on the ceiling. Have a snack, read something for pleasure. You'll be right as rain in no time.
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