diss diary #12

i would like to nap and hold a forever-warm mug of vanilla rooibos tea because WHAT IS GOING ON???

Dear Weed-ers,

I’ll be honest, February was hard. I was doing too much but not enough; I was incredibly motivated but also deeply uninspired.

We also had a cold snap a couple weeks ago, which really buttered my baguette when I had to go run in it with a beanie (I hate wearing hats). And as the sun continues to rise earlier and set later, I feel an immense amount of resistance to the impending end of cozy season.

French kiddos have been off of school for two weeks, so the city is really quiet and empty. But it’s not the emptiness of, say, the Christmas break, where you feel lonely when out and about and wandering. There’s a feeling of preparation in the air. Preparing for what???? I have the sense that people are pausing to recognize that life is happening again after a long winter.

But I had a hard February, and all I want is a week where no one — including myself — asks anything of me.

I had someone reach out to me apologizing for not being more in touch since the New Year and asking to chat so we could update one another on what’s been happening. At first I felt bad for not fully realizing their missing presence at meetings we typically both attend. They followed up their apology with “heard you’ve been pretty busy lol,” and I laughed it off a little.

And then I realized its truth.

valentine’s day flowers :)

what have i done?

To my relief, I submitted four dissertation completion fellowship applications. These were not actually the most stressful documents I’ve ever written, but as these things usually do, they definitely brought up a lot of existential dread. They were all due right around the time of Trump freezing federal research fund and taking over the Kennedy Center and banning DEI-language. And as a female scholar of color with very obvious leftist politics writing a dissertation about music and identity and power and climate change, I just… well what’s the point?

Nothing is ever guaranteed. But I fear that academia is going to turn its back on the incredibly valuable work we have done, or that musicology will backslide away from making music studies more welcoming, more generous, more inclusive (to me, the jury’s still out on equity, but we’re getting there). I am worried that institutions I thought I could trust will cave to conservative peer pressure instead of standing up for the thousands of people they employ and endorse.

I have known that I don’t fit the mold of what “traditional” musicologists want, and I constantly remind myself that this is one of my strengths. And yet, every time I submit an application, there is a loud voice saying “you won’t get this.” And it’s because I begrudgingly play along, and things feel out of alignment when I’m saying “I neeeeeed you to want me please I’m so smart and organized please I need to be employed and fed please please please.”

(Thank you so much Amie for showing me the importance of self-coronation.)

*sigh* I am getting really tired of lukewarm commitments. I am tired of not knowing what’s going to happen, and I know I’m not alone in that, but it doesn’t make it any better. I am tired of saving money to prepare for an unidentified goal other than “survival.” I am tired of needing to protect myself from the current socio-political realities by going on autopilot, because I have worked hard to not fall back onto old coping mechanisms for me.

Just tired.

Some bit of reassurance, though, is that I got accepted into two more conferences! One is for another music and French studies symposium in May, and the other is for the main US-based environmental humanities society in early July. I’m excited about the July one because it will be my first time attending an in-person conference ~totally~ outside of my home discipline, and I’m interested to see what kind of panel I’m placed on and if I make any new friends!

I also submitted an abstract as part of a pre-organized panel for the big annual meeting in musicology. It came together quite last minute, and I spent the better part of a week wanting to vomit with nerves: especially because it was due the same as my DCF apps, and that was too full of big intellectual questions swirling around. Incredibly overwhelming. But fingers crossed that things work out.

Importantly, I have been much more intentional to meander through ideas for archival work. I feel really guilty for not finding “interesting” primary sources yet, because I feel like I keep hitting walls about where to look and what kinds of things I’m looking for.

I contacted several museums, libraries, or archives with a one-sentence summary of my project and the question of “I feel like I’m missing something, do you have any insights about what might be in your collections or can you provide guidance on using your databases.” One of them has gotten back to me, which was nice, and I’m going to go consult some things later this week, which feels like progress.

But I am choosing to trust that the materials are out there waiting for me to stumble upon them one day. I know that we will find each other the more that I keep looking, and the less I try to predetermine what will be good for me. And lo and behold, I sat down for a couple hours yesterday and found some promising things at this institute that someone recommended I look into, so it seems that things are starting to move in, well, *a* direction.

trying not to feel cringe about sharing this lol

I recently redid the mantra board I keep above my desk and wrote down “i am letting myself be messy.” It came out of nowhere, was not originally going to be on the list. But having it there for this last week has already helped me remember to be patient in letting things feel more scattered and loose while I figure out the puzzle. It doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable to weed through.

I did read two important books that filled in big gaps in my factual knowledge about nineteenth century urban landscaping and design, and I revisited notes from articles and other books I read sometime last year. Sometimes doing secondary source research is a glorified procrastination technique, but also sometimes it is just what you need it to get the juices flowing. And thankfully, in the last week, I’ve cobbled together 1000+ words toward my conference paper. Really trying to rustle up the energy to be excited about this accomplishment because it’s a big one, but again: I’m tired.

been watching a lot of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City recently, and my friend pointed out the uncanny similarities between RHOSLC’s “villain” Jen Shah and Melania Trump’s inauguration outfit, and I can’t unsee it now.

what am i going to do next?

02/28, 08:46: i feel like im always waiting for the other shoe to drop, but whereas i used to feel really anxious about it, now it’s just a sense of having to feel prepared to do unexpected work on the other side of the fence. —> but there is always more to do… you just have to keep creating and going. not to the point of burnout or anything, but because we are creative beings and because life doesn’t stop. beings in motion would prefer to stay in motion, so we just have to keep moving and thinking and doing and dreaming and hoping…

In the moment it was the message I needed. But looking at it now, I don’t know what to do with it. I want to stop. I want it all to stop and slow the heck down.

In other words, it is exhausting that everything feels urgent or like an immediate crisis or in need of vigilant attention. I’m irritated that I turn to my phone in anxious moments before bed. Running makes me hangry and I never have quite enough snacks. My little palm tree died in January due to underwatering when I was away for Christmas, and I’m annoyed that I’m reading into that as some kind of metaphor for how things are going…

Every March, I re-confront the fact that I’m not a spring and summer girly, and I have to rediscover who I am when the color palettes shift and when the temperatures warm. This year, I am feeling a genuine sense of needing to change with the season. The ways I’m experiencing reality have stopped feeling quite as resonant. It’s not so much a stuck-ness, but just feeling like things are unsustainable as they are in this current moment.

Because I feel out-of-touch with myself, I just revisited my new year’s ins and outs list. I needed the reminder that I really do still want to do things like scroll less, complain less, drink more water, and be more creative.

So this week, I want to make the following commitments to myself so that I can support my happiness and have enough brainpower for the intellectual labor that NEEDS to happen:

fix the sleep routine!

I go to bed terribly unsettled bc of being on my phone too close to bedtime. At the start of the week, I was so good about being in bed by 10 and reading until I fell asleep. —> So: I’m going to get a little alarm clock so that I can leave my phone out of my bedroom, and I’m going to try really hard to hold myself to it. This also means that when I wake up, I will hopefully have less incentive to wallow around too long and enjoy a morning of journaling with coffee before my runs.

no think, only do (i.e. just write)

I will write 100 words per day on my conference paper. Some days, it will take longer than others, but I have enough time in the day to get it done.

I need to submit a cover letter as part of an application to participate in a week-long summer workshop, and it’s more or less written right now, just needs some blanks filled in. But I’m not going to overthink this one. I simply do not have the energy for it.

make more stuff

I have a yearlong Craftsy membership that was on something like $1.99 thanks to a promo code from a YouTuber I love dearly. I have yet to use it and haven’t used my watercolor supplies recently, so I want to take just ONE class this week. I have already bookmarked it. LET’S DO IT.

I also want to start a long-form hand craft like an embroidery or cross-stitch project. I also have a 1000-piece puzzle I have yet to do, so I might bust her out this week, too.

i’m part of a reading group that incorporates creative prompts that we do together during our calls. i took apart my valentine’s day flowers and wrestled with what remains when you take things apart…

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the farewell

I ran 36 miles last week, 35 the week before, and I’ve lost track of how many I did the week prior but it was definitely something in that range. I have really lost the plot and forgot that everyday people are definitely not running, let alone walking that much in a week. No wonder I am tired!!! Intellectual labor is hard enough, let alone without burning thousands of additional calories due to exercise.

Maybe one day I’ll learn to better take stock of the amount of long-term projects I take on and goals I want to chase simultaneously. Maybe one day I will do more to acknowledge that labor and effort in the present as things are happening.

For now, I’m going to keep it moving (slowly, though) as I give myself some grace, and have a chocolate chip cookie. :)

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Stay muddy friends! <3
Cana