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
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.
