Silly girl.

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I was meant to be grading, this morning, but I went on a quest through my bookshelves to find something else entirely. I did find that, but I also found several old notebooks of mine, one of which I wrote when I was in a peculiar situation in life – as being thoroughly, utterly, whole-heartedly consumed with an Idea that was like a fever, so it is hard to read that particular set of scribblings now – and another of which, well, have a look at it yourself:

Mind you, this was back in the summer of 2005, when my outlook on life was at once very open and expectant, and very grim.

This made me think – though I’ve been thinking of it lately in any case – about what it was like to be a graduate student at my Particular Institution.

I will say this: I had any number of disheartening things related to me about my work, viz.,

“This makes no sense.”
“You don’t seem to have an argument here.”
“You’re repeating yourself.”
“This is good, but you couldn’t ever publish it.”
“What the hell were you thinking when you wrote this?”
“Why didn’t you read essays in the language of the original poem?”
“Let’s just keep this idea of writing a trade book between the two of us, shall we?”
“You shouldn’t be allowed ever, ever, ever, near a word processor again.”*

And so forth.

But the worst thing anyone ever said to me, the most difficult, that around which I’m still trying hard to wrap my addled brains, was this:

“Lianne, you’re turning into the kind of person who never finishes anything.”

I’d reply now, as an instructor: Don’t you realize that writing is never finished? There can always be something more, something else done? Writing is a process? etc. etc.

But those words, when they came, were unfortunate. And they have been creeping into my conscience ever since.

True, I finished my dissertation, insofar as anyone can ever finish a dissertation.

But I worry now: what if I am that sort of person, the sort that doesn’t finish things?

I don’t mean publishing articles and essays – no, that’s expected of me, that I expect of myself, that is a discrete task which I can sit down and readily accomplish, howsoever little I will be pleased with the eventual result.

I mean, on a deeper level, what it means to really be through with a thing. To put it to rest. Is seeing it in print enough, for example. Wouldn’t I read it, months or years later, or even moments after I’d gotten the hard copy, and think to myself, Well, that’s another fine mess I’ve gotten myself into? What would I do? What could I do?

All of this is by the way of saying – be careful what you say to people who depend upon you for validation of their work. They listen, they comprehend.

Be you not quite so brutal.

*This was actually said to me (as were the others), but this was said during my dissertation defense. I have no defense for it. I cut and pasted large chunks of things, in desperation, and this naturally led to some unfortunate repetitions of certain paragraphs within mere pages of one another.

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