diss diary #14
crying in the club makes tomorrow easier.
Dear Weed-ers,
Growing up in Atlanta, spring comes disappointingly early, and then it’s hot and sticky from May to October. The opposite has been the case in Boston, where snowfall is viable well into April, and then we get a short spring that turns into summer, like clockwork, after graduations end.
But here, the move to spring has been incredibly gradual. It’s like I’ve never experienced spring before. The air has been genuinely refreshing, the scenery gorgeous; and the people-watching has been indulgent and beautiful.
I’m still coming to terms with my first marathon experience, which was over a month ago, but I’m tabling some of those thoughts for next time (catch up with the journey here). But what I will say now is that the day after the race felt like a bookend of sorts, and spring felt like it had emerged in full force.
I had grown into something, been well-fertilized and repotted, except maybe the pot was too big and I had a small meltdown about it during the transition but now the soil feels a little more like home and growth can recommence.
Let me explain.
the updates
I received exciting news about getting into a week-long summer program hosted by the New York Botanical Garden! I have several friends in the City, and in addition to participating in an enriching experience of seminars and workshops with interdisciplinary thinkers, I was looking forward to seeing them this summer. But sadly, a couple weeks later, the program director emailed to say that the program had to be canceled due to the widespread NEH funding cuts decreed by the federal administration. A bummer. The upside is that now I won’t have such a crammed July when I go back to the US, and visit my partner sooner than I had originally planned.
The news that made up for that loss, though, was when I received a prestigious dissertation completion fellowship for next year!! And I got the fellowship I most wanted, with Harvard’s Mahindra Humanities Center. The moment is full circle because during my last year of undergrad, I also had support from Emory’s humanities center to write my Honors thesis. That year was transformative because I got a crash course in being an academic: going to lunch talks, giving my first conference-style presentation, talking shop with dissertating grad students, and relishing in quiet office space with a coffee machine. It’s a pinch-me moment that I want to always be grateful for.
I also have recently had some research wins, as well. I’ve started going went to the Archives de Paris. I am in search of municipal materials documenting noise complaints around recently-built parks/gardens during the turn-of-the-century. Have yet to find any, but I think I just haven’t called up the right boxes yet. I did find a folder of requests made to the park service asking for permission to host concerts, and those will be useful I think? I also got my public library card hooked up with the network of Paris’s specialized libraries, which was a bit of an ordeal for a reason unknown to me, but we did it, and that means I have unlocked new locations to visit and write in.
And I also presented at a French music study day. I presented relatively new analysis that I’m experimenting with, so it was quite fresh, which is how I usually approach presentations for smaller venues like this. I felt better about this presentation than I did during the symposium in March, but still not great. Fortunately, I think the problem is that I just need different kinds of primary source materials to bolster some of my hunches, and preparing that paper helped clarify what to look for.
While writing that presentation, I took a noticeably more relaxed approach. This is not to say that I was “chill” and minimized its importance. Rather, I allowed myself to just work slowly and didn’t try to rush-write. I hate rushing. I allowed myself to listen to my musical examples — undistractedly; allowed myself to overwrite knowing that I could reorganize later; took lots of deep breaths, so many deep breaths. Not panicking and writing in a fight-flight-freeze state: that’s a win, too.
the reflection
After receiving news about my fellowship, I allowed myself to be excited about the possibility of being great. I am preparing for my success. I started to believe that finishing was materially possible (not that I ever doubted it, but it feels real now). I let myself play with ideas about how this fellowship would open up all kinds of possibilities of people I could meet, talks I could go to, connections I could make, the dream of being prolific with my craft. I allowed myself to feel grateful that I am being taken seriously by people whose opinions I care about. I am preparing for my success.
I don’t ever think of myself as a failure in such an outright way, but it’s more that I have been used to succeeding, especially intellectually. I am just afraid of failing, of not knowing what to do when things don’t go according to plan. And I’m also afraid of what happens after I get everything I want. What comes next? So when I do not meet expectations — whoever’s they are, real or imagined — I crumble.
And I crumbled in real-time in front of my advisors a couple weeks ago.
We gathered for a semesterly check-in and to discuss the chapter that I had finished in February. Thinking about the meeting now, it was really quite a productive meeting, and the comments they raised were relevant and valid and helped me clarify the gaps and find ways to simplify: all good things. The way they expressed their critiques was not particularly harsh nor un-generous. And I agreed with their takeaways, and the discussion was rich.
But still, the end of the hour-long meeting came, and I crumbled.
I remember entering the Zoom room, disoriented. I hadn’t been feeling particularly present and in my body that day. But that morning I opened my draft to prepare for the meeting: this doesn’t feel like me but i don’t know how to fix it and im embarrassed that they have to read this and i know it’s bad i don’t need them to tell me how bad it is but i know they’re going to tell me how bad it is so i need to prepare to scrap it all and rethink everything im doing. It made me start to doubt myself: had I let the work sit for too long? had it gone stale? really, how bad is the writing? are the ideas boring? do I care about this anymore? are the analyses I’m providing too obvious or boring or stupid?
Amidst all the uncertainty of academia, friends in the lab sciences losing their funding, and feeling the pressure to make sure I’m *extra* employable on next year’s job market, I got overwhelmed. Hi everyone, my name is Cana, I love to read, write, run, and take everything WAY too seriously.
By the end of the hour, I started tripping over my words, caveating everything with “so sorry, I’m tired, I’m at the end of my day here, apologies if I’m not being clear.” By the end of the hour, the protective armor I had put on to fight the feeling of not being in my body: it started to fall apart. I was feeling messy, but not in a way I recognized.
“I know it can feel tedious to have to explain these things, but your reader will go with you if you guide them,” one of them said.
My reply: “Respectfully, everything feels tedious and useless right now.” I wanted to leave, could feel heat behind my eyeballs. can we please leave can we please leave can we please leave
“What about your joy?” another of them, sensing an energy shift afoot.
I put my head in my hands, frustrated that I was starting to feel frustrated. I was frustrated that I was zoning out and feeling out-of-body. I frustrated that I had let my work sit idle for too long and let myself get disconnected from it. “I’m sorry, I’m tired, give me a minute.” Meanwhile, they’re staring at me in silence.
“Cana, are you okay?” the first one chimed in a minute later. My reply, as I put back on some semblance of an armor (sliding blue-light glasses back onto the bridge of my nose): “Maybe?”
the lesson(s)
And so, a week later, I debriefed with my main advisor. We’re all fine now; apologies happened, and I have a new and better draft that should be done by the end of the month.
The morning of my committee meeting, I made a new laptop background. Front and center is the following:
I am surprised how much asking this question has shifted my mindset greatly. It encourages me to wash the dishes rather than letting them sit overnight: it takes less time than I think it does. It encourages me to just do 100 words of writing so that tomorrow won’t feel so rough, and usually, I end up wanting to do more. It has gotten me to read more, download the articles, gather together the scattered notes of primary sources, do nitty gritty life admin.
And not that that I feel more productive, but that things feel more aligned. During idle moments when doom-thinking starts to creep in, I ask myself what I can do now to help success feel more possible. i am preparing for my own success.
I want to stop making my life harder than it needs to be. Being incredibly vulnerable in front of people who I care about but who still also terrify me sometimes, embarrassing as it was, presented me with an opportunity to reset. Not saying you, too, should go cry in your boss’s office or in front your dissertation committees, but I’m not saying that it didn’t help me re-learn some valuable things:
I deserve to be present in my life, and I am allowed to take care of myself so that I can show up the way I want to.
Taking space from things is fine, but it goes even better when you don’t just do nothing during that time. Be crafty, take long walks, dip into different kinds of reading. Give your brain a chance to make new connections by making new discoveries.
Something is better than nothing.
We are all in the weeds together. And it is such a pleasure to find roots and grow up and outwards into the world with you. If you want to see more of how the garden takes shape, or other phases of the journey, make sure that you’re subscribed. You’re also always welcome to upgrade for a few extra posts each month, or grab a beverage with me anytime you like!
stay muddy, my dears 😊🌿💚
lovely as always 💛
My favorite author strikes again!! 🌱