on being young and getting sushi

an unedited transcription from my morning pages

i am still thinking about this journal session from earlier in april. i intentionally bookmarked it, and sometimes that means my journal falls open to those pages. usually these journal entries are riddled with big personal information that i normally keep private. but this entry stayed pretty zoomed out, and i stumbled onto some gems pretty early on in the session that i wanted to share.

i love when i manage to inspire myself on accident!!!

so take a few moments and step into one of my mornings, won’t you? this is largely unedited (i write in a mega paragraph usually, but have added paragraph breaks for the sake of your eyes lol), and i’ve included little images of doodles and a glimpse of an organizational idea i came up for a different writing project that i scribbled in the margins.

apr 06, 09:12

“wrote pretty much all day yesterday for my chapter contribution, and i got decent work done. analyzed a couple more pieces, input more analysis that i took from the chapter version of this stuff, and it just feels good to see the word count climb up as a result of all my efforts. sometimes i forget that i am only 27 and am having these large and beautiful big ideas about disciplinary boundaries and about the state of the field and about the big questions, and it’s no wonder that i haven’t had my big break because so many people who are older and who have way more experience with life and reading and writing than i have, simply because i am still young.

i am still young and still growing in terms both personal and professional. who cares? i have a whole career of making big interventions, of writing a field changing book, and i know that it will be the result of years of super, super intentional and consistent, sustainable practice over the course of many years. and i have a lifetime to be great and to change the world, or at the very least dream of changing the world, and i don’t have to do it now because…

well what comes next after changing the world? a person can really only do that once, and then they have to go back to just living and existing like the rest of us. so why rush that? why rush to the earth-shattering thing before you are ready, or before the world is ready for who you are, or before you can handle any more commentary from all sides about how people love it or they hate whatever you’re doing? for everyone who will love what you do, there will always be people for whom it won’t resonate at all, and that’s what happens. but sometimes i think i’m ready for being seen, but then i retreat when i recall that being seen means being…well, completely seen and critiqued, and being sensitive doesn’t always bode well for any of that.

i’m just remembering my conference experience from November, and i guess conference experiences have numbed me to a little bit of the fear about being seen because the format is such a staple part of our career. we have to do them. but (gosh i love this shade of green marker i’m using today!!) you always anticipate having to be on the defensive, and i remember that everyone was saying that that conference felt like the big daddy space, but it honestly didn’t feel that huge to me because i have done so many other presentations, both in-person and virtual, and i’ve done a variety of formats and styles over the years. and now i understand why we were writing 20-page papers for all our seminars because that is a standard length for an article in the real world. i don’t think anyone ever said that in any of my classes, so when i become a professor i want to be so, so transparent about why i do what i do, why i assign what i want to assign.

but anyway.

i didn’t feel all that pressured by that conference because all conferences are experimental places to allow yourself to publicly try out an idea and get feedback on it. and as i have been working on my article thingy — which is also helping me untangle some things about the chapter and giving me clarity on what the [dissertation] chapter actually needs to be instead of this shoving together of stuff that is making it feel blown up and full and overgrown almost — i am feeling intensely the value of experimentation and play and trust in the process because i have spent so much time starting and stopping the same sentences over and over, looking for the right things to say at the end of the sentence, and that has been the entire process. it feels like generals all over again.

i’m worried that the piece isn’t focused enough, but if that is the publication’s feedback, then so be it. i am who i am. but i like what i have put together and this is the first time i am doing something like this, and i’m proud of the fact that i am doing it at all. i am absolutely buzzing today, but i am also mentally tired from the labor i did yesterday, but i feel motivated to do stuff today so maybe i will tinker with an abstract or copy and paste some material into a new word doc for my cambridge companion chapter so that i can see how much and what i already have.

i didn’t end up getting sushi yesterday because bestie and i were on the phone talking about all the drama going on [editor’s note: it’s been the craziest time in my department and in all of my friend’s lives during the last month, which includes the liberation zone encampment activity at my current institution, Harvard, and at my alma mater, Emory. mostly i am sad to not be living through those experiences with my colleagues. but that feeling is a humbling reminder of how beautiful and deep and meaningful my friendships have become. more on this in the next dissertation diary.] i miss my friends, and i didn’t get sushi yesterday because i also just wasn’t feeling it anymore after having my mediterranean cowboy caviar for lunch (so good, so fricking good), and because i was talking to my best friend about all of the turmoil in life right now…

but today: today is supposed to be 80 degrees in the city and i have grand plans of going to a park to sit and read or sip a coffee or do something glorious. like i said in my morning pages yesterday, it is a weekend of seducing creativity to me and being charmed by the world. i am so charming and the universe cannot help by want to give me ideas and dreams and inspiration. i am a mother-effing writer <3. (10:02)”

those little snippets of liz gilbert (which i wrote about here) came out there at the end, to loop back into my thoughts at the beginning about being okay with not having my work be groundbreaking just yet. i had clearly just finished the book and was playing around with adopting her insights into my own voice. —> also in case you were wondering i did get the sushi eventually, and it was a delicious veggie combo sitch. maki rolls, miso soup, and a delish cabbage salad. might mess around and get it for dinner tonight.

diss diary #3 is up next, and then some reflections from a 2-week trip through europe i just completed! may is going to be a beautiful month for in the weeds, and i can’t wait. :)

bien cordialement,
cana<3