a stream of words [six]

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in order to find out

what number this 

"stream of consciousness" post was

(it's six, by the way, but you already knew that, 

if you're reading this.

when i was getting ready to prepare this post, 

i did not.) 

i looked through a few of the past years 

to find the last one i did

and, in doing so, 

i stumbled upon words

and times

and events

that i've forgotten about. 

not that they are totally gone from my memory

(the blog posts help me to remember), 

but because

they feel like they are from another world, 

another timeline. 

parties, 

trips to nyc, 

people in stadiums, 

baseball games

unmasked 

close together 

sharing germs

sharing breath 

sharing moments with strangers. 

i was reminded 

that in late 2019 

early 2020

i was feeling more of myself again 

feeling more at home 

in my skin 

with my mind 

with my program. 

and. 

the pandemic has taken many things away 

from all of us 

in different ways, 

different degrees. 

[it is the same storm, 

but we are in different boats.] 

and for me

it has taken away

what might have been 

some of the most interesting, 

fulfilling, 

and looked-forward-to parts 

of my phd years

(the opportunity 

to delve in the archives, 

to travel and live abroad again). 

i remember

one of my advisors saying to me in january 

(when i was applying for research funding) 

that she was envious 

that to go back to those stages of research 

--of travel, trial, and error--

they were good parts of the process, 

of the program. 

but now. 

now, it's uncertain when those opportunities will come. 

time marches on,

but the clock to my funding

has not stopped. 

so much is uncertain. 

i do what i can

and pray for openings

for the healing of the world 

(for both altruistic and selfish reasons). 

but the waiting is unbearable at times. 

and i know

there are people 

who have it worse. 

that i know. 

but it is still hard. 

it is still unfair. 

i've been feeling burnt out this week. 

i finished teaching a class online, 

and this week i have felt the exhaustion 

as my body and my mind 

just needed a break. 

sam was gone during part of this week 

(back in utah for a friend's wedding) 

and so

after i finished grading

i found myself watching bbc period dramas

little dorrit

tess of the d'urbervilles 

little women (which was not bbc, 

but rather pbs). 

and. 

although it was a different week 

than what i usually do, 

it was nice. 

necessary, even. 

i could have written more

i could have transcribed more documents

there are so many things i could have done

but instead

i watched some bbc period dramas

to try to recover

from burn out. 

one of my pandemic projects

(i know, i know--

my dissertation should be my 

true pandemic project--

but tell me how i'm really 

supposed to get that done 

when i can't get to any of 

the archives i need?) 

has been to write a sort-of

memoir

[more of like a mosaic]

of my twenties. 

it has been good to remember. 

also been good to try 

to synthesize. 

what i will do with it 

i don't know

but. 

it will be there for me

if anything else. 

to remember how i've grown

changed

and deepened. 

i've been thinking a lot about history lately 

its uses

and abuses. 

this summer has given me a lot to think about 

in regards to that. 

and

although right now

i am ruminating on those thoughts

before they germinate

i do take issue 

with people thinking that history 

is memory 

or that memory 

is nostalgia 

or that history is calcified, 

or that history is theology--

commandments set in stone. 

there is so much we don't know. 

so much 

we just don't know. 

history is a tool. 

it is interpretative. 

and it can be a handmaid

to good or evil. 

"history may be servitude, 

history may be freedom." 

i have been thinking 

recently

frequently 

of a poem by the brilliant writer, 

tracy k. smith 

and her thoughts on history 

in her poem "new road station"

and if you, dear reader, 

and i were sitting together

i would take out my phone 

and find this poem

and share it with you. 

so i will do so now: 

History is in a hurry. It moves like a woman 

Corralling her children onto a crowded bus. 

History spits, Go, go, go, lurching at the horizon, 

Hammering the driver's headrest with her fist. 

Nothing else moves. The flies settle in place

Watching with their million eyes, never bored. 

The crows strike their bargain with the breeze. 

They cluck and caw at the women in their frenzy, 

The ones who suck their teeth, whose skirts

Are bathed in mud. But history is not a woman, 

And it is not the crowd forming in a square. 

It is not the bright swarm of voices chanting No 

And Now, or even the rapt silence of a room 

Where a film of history is right now being screened. 

Perhaps history is the bus that will only wait so long 

Before [cranking its engine and] barreling down 

The road. Maybe it is the voice coming in 

Through the radio like a long distance call. 

Or the child in the crook of his mother's arm

Who believes history must sleep inside a tomb, 

Or the belly of a bomb. 

and after i had shared it 

i would ask your thoughts about it

and share my own.

i have many thoughts, 

but i will leave you with these: 

so many things history is not

even when we want it to be. 

what history is

is harder to place.