on gratitude

diss diary #9: build it and then they will come

Dearest Weeders,

As a kid, I dreamt of being able to travel regularly as part of my career. Over the last several years, I’ve racked up skymiles visiting various places for conferences and going to and from Canada to see my partner bi-annually. But I come to you today from my couch in Paris, after having gone to Chicago and back in less than a week, and I am deeply questioning my life choices.

I can’t tell if it’s jet lag making my question things, or if it’s the crash that comes after days of over-caffeination, or if it’s the fatigue of 3 days of all-consuming intellectual and social stimulation: likely all of it, and all of it hitting at once.

There’s been a lot of buzzy intellectual energy over the last month. And late autumn is here, and it’s a season where I want to curl up with tea and a book and a petit plaid. So it seems fitting that this diss diary is a bit longer and something to cozy up with. Light a candle, grab a warm beverage, and snuggle into a comfy corner. I’ll wait. Come back when you’re ready. :)

some street views of Chicago: i really love the physical feeling of the city, with the tall buildings and the airy feel. or maybe that's just the wind?

the updates

In the last diss diary, I wrote about my excitement about going to Oslo for the symposium that I was co-organizing. As the universe would have it, I got a sinus infection the day before I was supposed to fly out. I spent all day in bed that Sunday, hoping that the rest would activate enough of my white blood cells, but to no avail.

I made the call not to go in-person after struggling all weekend with energy levels, feeling physically uncomfortable, and having difficulty focusing while writing my presentation. It was hard to not be there with everyone, especially because a huge reason for the event was to prioritize forging intimate, thoughtful connections. I had been so eager to feel the energy of thinking collaboratively and magically together, especially after spending so much time on my own pretty much since the beginning of August.

Luckily, the event was always hybrid by design, so I could at least attend on Zoom. I was more lucid on the second day of activities thankfully. And a happy upside is that having me in the Zoom room helped to better troubleshoot logistics for other remote attendees. In the end, the sessions were all deeply interesting, and all of the presenters were incredibly generous with their ideas. I’m hoping there will be a way to follow it up somehow, but we’ll see how it unfolds in the coming months/year or so.

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The next week was election week, and I used my rage to fuel an accidental writing sprint. I think I pushed out about 2000 words in about ten days? Again, I don’t really keep track of word counts rigorously, but even if it wasn’t actually that many words, it felt really fast and really abundant!! Before the Oslo fun times, I’d caught myself doing that thing where I edit the same paragraph over and over instead of doing the harder parts, like writing up analysis of primary sources. Still working on the same chapter about various planty beeps and boops, and taking a bit of time away from it helped me remember which gaps in the chapter need to be filled. In this case, I needed to finish up my discussion of this botanical listening device and also analyze music from this quirky album.

took myself out to lunch one saturday where i read my book and had a burger that tasted like the ShakeShack shroom-burger. not mad at it at all.

Whenever I take the time to write out analyses or prose descriptions of sound, I’m always shocked by how quickly the words accumulate on the page. I wrote about this in my journal also:

NOV 12, 08:17 // it feels good to have things to talk about. this is a good lesson for me, that whenever i feel stuck on a writing project, it always helps to go back to the sounds and the music because i will always hear something new, and i think there is also something to be said for the fact that because listening is a subjective experience rooted in the body, it asks me to be present with my materials and the things that get me ticking, and i will always hear things in other ways. i wonder if that is why it always works for me.

Amidst all of that writing, I also read my friend’s dissertation. Our styles of scholarship are quite different, but the differences exposed how much I think I’ve been overthinking what my project has to be at this stage of my research career. It was refreshing to experience the straightforwardness and clarity of her project and her POV. After reading so much work by established scholars in recent months, I was reminded of how the dissertation is a genre that can and should only do so much; it’s mostly to prove that you have a grasp on some corner of the field, and to give you a chance to feel what it’s like to pursue a long-term project. I went to OfficeDepot to print some more dissertations to have in my reading pipeline, and I’m excited to tuck into them, including this one about imaginary plant life in Victorian literature.

ignore the wilted pansies (just like i did apparently)

Which brings us back to Chicago.

This was the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society (AMS, not to be confused with the American Meteorological Society). It’s my “home conference” of the three main music studies societies, and it where the majority of my colleagues and collaborators call home, as well.

When I booked the flight, I knew it would be a shlep from Paris. But I also knew that I wanted to go because I love hearing about emerging research and also connecting with my friends. My Parisian stint earlier this year taught me how much I *love* friendship, particularly with the femme folk in my life.

Every year, I reflect on my first AMS, which was in my new home city of Boston in 2019. As a new graduate student then, I had no idea what was going on. I barely knew how to get downtown from Cambridge, let alone what to wear, about how to talk to people professionally, how many talks to go to, or when to prioritize following your plan versus seizing the moment. Having “Harvard” on my nametag gave me a little confidence in some of those interactions, and it still does sometimes, even though I am really tired of the assumptions that come with it.

This year, I felt so comfortable and really present the whole time.

People came up to me to congratulate me on my presentation from last year’s conference, which was so unexpected, generous, and kind. Many of my alumni friends attended this year, and I didn’t realize how much I missed them until hugging them and holding warm coffee cups next to them at a small hotel lobby table. My undergraduate mentors got to see me in action, and I also had mentoring chats with some of my younger peers. I attended many amazing talks and asked questions during the q&a periods, and dare I say some of them were good! I ate deep dish pizza for the first time, and I had a beautiful exchange with the woman making my sandwich at Potbelly’s who loved my perfume.

proof of deep dish :)

Phil J. Deloria gave a beautiful keynote lecture that synthesized his and his father’s contributions to Indigenous studies and American studies, in addition to their lives as musicians. He also spoke about his great-aunt’s artworks that are these visual triptychs of different celebrities, many of them artists and musicians. These “personality prints” as she called them were once random relics of family history are now part of an exhibit at the Met in New York (see video below which released the day he gave his lecture actually!).

Everyone left the room buzzing after his talk, and several of us were in tears as a result of the gentle atmosphere he cultivated in that grand ballroom. I myself had a feeling, “I want to do this one day.” Not give a keynote per se. though that would be cool. But the bigger thing I saw for myself was a world where I help instill a feeling of shimmery inspiration in other people. That would also be cool.

At AMS 2019, I stumbled into a study group for musicologists thinking about environmentalism and climate change for the first time (sometimes called ecomusicologists). I’ve been to each of those meetings every since then, usually sitting quietly in the background because of being a graduate student unsure of my contributions, confused about the disciplinary politics of the group, being too scared to take up leadership space as is the norm for me.

But this year, someone nominated me to be a co-chair for the group. This person had attended our garden symposium (with a 7 hour time difference, no less!) and apparently really enjoyed the experience. I remembered seeing their name on Zoom but couldn’t place them thanks to my sick brain. But she was the one who shared that the symposium happened, which wasn’t something that I was even going to bring up, largely because I don’t know many of the people well enough to be vulnerable and share big personal wins like that.

Planning that event with my friend emerged purely out of a desire to collaborate with a new colleague, and wanting to bring together a community. It was an exercise in “build it and they shall come.” Especially since the disheartening election results, I have been feeling increasingly ambivalent about the pressure to please the powers that be, gatekeeping forces, institutional endorsements, etc. My friend and I didn’t really ask anyone for approval to pursue the idea, and more just said “we want to do this, help us make it happen.” We created a space, people came, and people apparently loved it? What a valuable lesson.

In general, this year I am continuing to learn that I need to just do what feels best for me. And creating an event that felt meaningful to me was enough. But the fact that it seemed meaningful to someone else also feels good. And I am grateful for the fact that she openly expressed appreciation for what I could bring to the table, and it feels good to be acknowledged for the good work that I would do regardless of what other people will say about it. It’s a much needed, albeit small sign that I should keep going, that I’m on the path to being accepted.

some parisian autumnal views recently. the greens on the trees are particularly rich, i feel like, which makes my heart soar. and for those asking, no, these photos have not been edited.

Those are just a couple instances of how I have been seeing glimpses of my future self a lot recently, or at the very least what I think is in my future. As we start to lay the groundwork for the new year, more and more of them keep popping up. It makes me feel okay with having big goals and dreams for myself because I can feel that sense of possibility.

I am itching to see what kind of post-doc or job I will get, and I am choosing to believe that whatever I secure will be good. I am itching to see how my dissertation will turn out, and I am curious how my first book will be different from it. I can’t wait to see how my clothing taste will evolve, how long I can grow out my hair, and how fast I can run my next marathon (I’ll run this one first, though). I am excited to live out the end of my 20s and see how I will decorate my hoped-for future home and if I will ever get that pair of dachshunds I’ve always wanted.

But for now, I am here. In Paris. On my couch. Watching my little twinkly lights flicker at 10pm on a Tuesday. And I am grateful.

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i’ve been feeling really up and down in terms of both mood and emotions recently, and stringing together a diss diary is always a grounding moment for me. so thank you so dearly for your eyes and ears during a particularly turbulent time in the world. <3 if you feel so moved, feel free to share this snippet of my journey with a friend, upgrade your subscription, or leave a one-time tip! such a pleasure to have you in the weeds with me. :)