Moments of Joy

In several posts during my dissertation writing journey, I'd sworn off participating in a graduation ceremony.  I reasoned that just finishing was celebration enough and I complained about the cost of the regalia and the whole rigmarole of participating in a graduation ceremony for literally the fourth time.

But my homegirl persuaded me that it was worth it.  "People need to see you walk across the stage!" she argued.  She prompted me to think about what walking across the stage would symbolize for me and for everyone else; I am the first in my family on both sides to ever receive a doctoral degree, and walking across the stage is a testament to others that it can be done.

Now a semester removed from grinding out an existence in the dissertation-writing trenches, I was able to distance myself from that space a little bit and begin to see it in a new light.  I felt better about formally recognizing my accomplishment, and I looked forward to reconnecting with colleagues and mentors in the town that my husband and I consider our first home. 

So, after officially graduating in August, I walked across the stage this month with my adviser and we performed the traditional "hooding" ceremony.  After the ceremony, I hosted (okay, my parents hosted) a reception with a few friends, family, colleagues and mentors in attendance to celebrate.  Before we cut the cake, I gave an off-the-cuff speech thanking everyone, and in that moment, I was overcome with gratitude.  It was just a glowing, joyful moment, and I basked in it.

The following day, my parents had a little holiday get together at their home.  My husband and I were asked to get our guitars out and we played a few Christmas songs.  One of them was "Feliz Navidad." I gave my tambourine to my little bro and he played, and we all sang and clapped and danced while my husband strummed.  I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas!  I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas!  I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart!  Again, I was struck with this overwhelming sense of gratitude.  We were united, smiling, laughing, in a warm, celebratory moment.  I was surrounded by so much love.  It was a moment of pure joy.  And I felt so present in that moment.  I cherished it.

I never want to take these moments for granted.  I want to always be present in them and hold them close to me.

Tomorrow we're checking to see whether I'm carrying a little Christmas present.  Regardless of the result, I will embrace it.  I'm confident that when it happens, it will happen exactly when it's supposed to.

First Semester as Profesora, Done

So, I've come to the end of my first semester as an actual, real live professor.  I have one more section of exams to grade (and then I have to actually enter the overall grades into the system) before I can say I'm done (oh, and then I have the email the bookstore my book selections for next semester before it gets too late...ugh!) but I'm just about there.

While I have honestly enjoyed my time here so far—I enjoy my students, I get along with my colleagues and I've had a ton of support from them as well as the administration—I have to be honest and say I have struggled with insecurity. Some people would specifically categorize it as impostor syndrome.  I constantly question whether I should even be where I am.  Whether academia is where I belong.  My mind gets crowded with perceptions of my inadequacy, my lack of experience, my lack of expertise.  But not just that, the feeling that I should be knowledgeable about a certain thing, or have experience in a certain area, or have traveled to a certain part of the world, but I don't or haven't simply because I haven't given enough effort, further proof of my unsuitability for the place in which I somehow ended up.

But sometimes, little jewels are unexpectedly dropped into your lap.  Things that make you feel like, despite the uncertainty, despite the insecurity, the questioning of yourself and your place, that maybe you're okay. You're not perfect, but maybe you're doing something right.  Yesterday, I got an email from a student that totally made my day:

I hope you are having a good start to your winter break!! I just wanted to email you and thank you for such a memorable first semester. Your class was by far my favorite class because of the enthusiasm and joy you brought everyday. You made my learning experience much more enjoyable, and after a full day of classes I was always relieved to come to Spanish. I also wanted to thank you for your outstanding effort in making sure my needs as a student were met. You wanted the best for our class and you always made sure we knew you were there for us! I felt like you genuinely cared about my development as a student, and that is something a lot of teachers can't do. You don't know how much it means to me that you gave your full effort. Especially since this was your first year at [name of institution] (hopefully you get to stay for many more)! But I just wanted to make sure you knew how much of an impact you had on me. You set the bar high, and I hope to see you back on campus next semester! Have an awesome break and Merry Christmas! 

Wow...I was just floored.  And my little teacher heart felt really warm and fuzzy.  I wrote him back, thanking him for his kind words.

And that brings me to something else...will I be back next year?  I think there's a good chance that I will be asked to stay.  A colleague is going on sabbatical and I've been told that a request to extend the visiting position (my current position) has been submitted to the Dean.  But nothing has been offered or made official or contracts signed yet, so I'm still exploring other options.  So far, I have interviews lined up with two other institutions.  There's a lot to consider.  But we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

What I'm wondering now is whether I'll have a little Christmas surprise this month.  It would seem especially apt this month, what with the whole reason for the season being that For unto us a child is born...lol.  I guess the ubiquitous birthing/maternal imagery in our traditional carols aren't made any more clear to you than when you're actually considering "bringing forth a son."  Actually, we'd prefer a girl first, but of course would be happy either way.

As with so many other things, we'll just have to wait and see.

Morning Details

Dimple on the right.  I kiss it.

Chin indentation.  I trace it.  A brief horizontal line above a chin that I softly grasp between my thumb and forefinger, grizzly with stubble.  I have a chin indentation, too, but it's more like a dimple, almost a cleft.  My brothers used to call it a butt chin.

A pronounced cupid's bow on his upper lip.  The only way you can explain a cupid's bow to people who don't know what a cupid's bow is is by mentioning Rihanna, because she has a pronounced one, too.

Deep-set, down-turned hazel eyes.  They could be sad eyes, but when he smiles, you realize they're the kind of eyes that smile more than the actual smile of his lips.  They're framed by ample eyelashes some women would envy.

A small bump on the bridge of his nose.  It happened when he was a kid and took a baseball to the face.  When we went to his hometown together for the first time and he pointed out a ball park, I asked, "Is that where you got your nose broken?"

Freckles sprinkled everywhere.  A small mole in the center of his neck right above his collarbone.

For maybe the third morning in a row, after returning from a too-long shower, I find him still in bed but awake and ask if he were waiting for me to get out of the bathroom.  We both laugh at the repetitiveness, the absurdity, the familiarity.

Loving

During our much-needed Thanksgiving holiday break, my husband and I went to see Loving. It's about the couple behind the landmark Supreme Court case Loving vs. Virginia, which struck down anti-miscegenation laws throughout the U.S. in 1967.

It was a quiet, powerful movie.  So much is communicated in its silences.  It focused on the Lovings as a couple and the Lovings' family life rather than the legal processes of the court case.  Although theirs was a landmark case during the Civil Rights Movement, they weren't trying to be heroes or trying to make a statement.  They were just trying to live their lives and raise their family in peace.

My husband and I felt a little awkward getting tickets at first.  I imagined people at the theater seeing us and thinking, "Oh, we know why you want to see this movie."  An interracial couple goes to see a movie about an interracial couple.  Typical.

But it didn't matter.  We had M&Ms and popcorn and Dr. Pepper and each other.  We walked into the theater hand-in-hand.  And we walked out hand-in-hand.

Dos días despúes / Two days later

When I was studying abroad in Spain in 2004, I took a Cervantes class.  This is the same year that extremists planted a bomb on a Madrid train, killing hundreds of people.  This was done in an election year in Spain in an attempt to sway the results (at the time Spain was a major European supporter of the Iraq war and extremists wanted the incumbent party to lose as a result of popular anger at having gotten Spain involved, thereby making the country a target).  The extremists got their wish and the vote swung to the opposite party.  A few of my classmates flew back to the U.S. in fear.

But back to the Cervantes class.  We went to a talk where a couple of Cervantes scholars were discussing the question of Don Quijote's sanity, whether he were actually crazy or whether he were willfully living in his own fantasy.  But before the talk one of the panelists read a poem he had written two days after the terrorist attack and I liked it so much that I asked him afterward if I could have a copy of it.  I kept it and still have it after all these years.  Today, I was prompted to search through my sentimental junk and find it.  I'll write the original Spanish with my English translation following:

Sé que hoy los espejos tendrán dificultades para reflejar mi imagen,
Sé que hoy tiene que llover,
No porque el cielo llore ni nada de eso,
Sino porque el agua que caiga del cielo tiene que limpiar el mundo,
Tiene que arrastrar y llevarse lejos todos los malos pensamientos, todos los
odios,
No debemos caer en el odio, porque entonces nos habrán vencido de
verdad.
Alma victoriosa será aquella que llegue al último momento pudiendo decir
"Yo amo y los cristales rotos caídos no empañaron mi camino."
Mi revolución es la de quedarme sentado frente a mi ventana y su horizonte
del todavía es posible,
Y amar, amar a todos los seres del mundo, sin excepción, y desear su
felicidad.
Dime, vieja amiga, qué les decimos a nuestros alumnos de esto, qué les
contamos, ¿les mentimos?
Les enseñaremos a leer en el libro de la Naturaleza,
Donde todo es armonía (incluso la muerte),
Donde todo tiene sentido.
Es necesario que hoy llueva.
Quién hace tanta bulla.
Sé que nos encerrarán en prisión por decir hoy que el hombre es bueno,
pero es que el hombre, querida amiga, es bueno.
El Quijote fue siempre un libro para no olvidar, porque olvidar es el peor
pecado del ser humano, pero esta noche, sabiendo porqué pero sin quererlo
saber, es de repente un libro para olvidar.  Hasta que mañana el viento
acaricie de nuevo mi cara.

I know that today mirrors will have difficulty reflecting my image.
I know that today it must rain.
Not because heaven is crying or any of that.
But because the water that falls from the sky has to clean the world.
It has to drag and carry far away all of the bad thoughts, all of the
hate
We should not succumb to hate, because then they will have defeated us
truly.
The victorious soul will be the one which arrives at the last moment being able to say
"I love and the fallen broken glass did not cloud my way."
My revolution is one of staying seated in front of my window and its horizon
of it is still possible,
And love, love all of the beings of the world, without exception, and desire their
happiness.
Tell me, old friend, what will we say to our students of this, what do we
tell them, do we lie to them?
We will teach them to read in the book of Nature,
Where all is harmony (including death),
Where all makes sense.
It is necessary that today it rains.
Who makes such a commotion.
I know that they will imprison us for saying today that man is good,
but it's just that man, dear friend, is good.
Quijote was always a book not to forget, because forgetting is the worst
sin of humankind, but tonight, knowing why but without wanting to
know, it's all of a sudden a book to forget.  Until tomorrow the wind
caresses my face anew.

Yesterday morning I cried

on the way to work when I saw a fellow professor walking down Main with his little daughter in a stroller.  The scene was so simple and beautiful.  It evoked a longing in me that I'd like to be able to dispassionately and nonchalantly set aside.  Yesterday morning, a deep violet streak brought tears to my eyes.

A voice said that it would be a long while before I'd be able to enjoy a moment like that.  It said that it was far off.  Unattainable, even.  What makes you think you can have that?  It's not yours and it's not for you.

It's not necessarily having a child that I feel is unattainable.  It's the idea of the ability to create a life where I will be able to unstressfully enjoy having a child that seems unattainable.  A life where I will be able to take a walk with my child on a crisp autumn morning and not worry about how it's all going to come together. A life that includes a home of our own, permanent jobs, financial security, affordable child care, a welcoming place with people who speak our language.

There are bright spots, for sure.  They include my bright-eyed students who are excited that I'm teaching Humanities next semester. They include the morning moment my husband hits snooze and wraps his arm around me because we're both awake but want to enjoy those few precious moments before we have to get out of bed.  They include the fact that my husband was offered a teaching position at a nearby university.  I should be content.

But my days still feel like contingencies.  I have barely begun to apply for jobs.  And the ones I've seen so far weigh me down with my woeful unqualification and unsuitability for them.  I'm paralyzed by the very idea of applying for them.  What makes you think you can have that?  It's not yours and it's not for you.  Do I care about research and publication plans and book proposals and my future scholarly trajectory and profile?  I do not.  How can an academic not care about those things?  Maybe I'm not an academic.  I'm an overeducated, undermotivated person who gets by, ending up in places I didn't plan to be.  It's not altogether a bad thing to end up in places you didn't plan to be.  In many ways, I'm quite happy that I've ended up in places I didn't plan to be.  But I've never had it all together and I don't know why I can't rid myself of the need to.

Never Make Assumptions...Ever

God is a funny being.  He has a sense of humor, He really does.

As much as I despise when other people make assumptions about me and try to categorize me, I realize that time and time again, I do the same to other people. Case in point:

This afternoon, P and I pulled up into the Save-a-lot parking lot.  Right next to a 40ish, cigarette-smoking redhead in a black pickup truck.  Wearing a wife beater.  I glanced at P knowingly before I dashed out to pick up a few items while P waited for me in the car.

When I got back, pickup truck guy was still there, and as I got in the car, noticed that he was sort of staring at us.  Once the door was safely shut, I put on my best hicktown accent and pretended I was the guy to amuse my husband: "Ah cain't believe the world we're livin in...whah don't folks just stick wit their own kahnd?" P laughed, nodding in agreement.  "I know, that's what I thought he was probably thinking, too...like, why is he looking at us like that?"  I looked over at the guy again and he was still looking at us, this time with sort of a half smile on his face.  I smirked and gave him a head nod before we drove off...but not before we saw a black woman with a few bags of groceries emerge from the Save-a-lot, approach the pickup and get in on the passenger's side.

The Ways I Know

In the car together, on our way to church, drinking in the scenery passing by.  He turns to me and says, "You bring so much laughter into my life."

Not having a great start to the day.  Anxious and down.  When he texts a simple "I love you," I respond with a torrent of honesty.  Later, he asks I would like to have lunch together and meets me on campus.  A small thing, but so welcome, so needed.

I go to work without an umbrella and not long after, there's a torrential downpour.  As soon as I think to myself, "Ugh, why didn't I bring an umbrella?" I get a text from him asking if I'd like him to bring one to my office.

He holds me, caressing my belly although we aren't pregnant yet.  His desire to be a father bleeds through and his tenderness reassures me he will be present, aware, involved, nurturing, devoted.

Grocery shopping is a team sport.  Armed with our list, we march in, divide and conquer.

Reminders when we're apart during the day: "I miss you."  A selfie of him with a thumbs up at the local coffee shop.  Links to a worship song on YouTube and hilarious interviews with bemused foreign journalists covering the alternate universe known as the Republican National Convention.  A dozen roses awaiting me at home at the end of my first day of class.

My self-consciousness always rears its head.  Should I be thankful that I still look young enough that people feel it acceptable to ask my age?  The inevitable questions in addition to the unstated obvious: The 5-year age gap between us.  Our racial difference. Our fledgling marriage.  I'm working while he's finishing his doctoral program. (If it were the other way around, no one would bat an eye.)  How did this happen?  How does this work? Imagining the gears turning in people's heads trying to figure me out, trying to figure us out.  But when we're alone, the Otherness melts away.  We have our world, and we're a team.  I see and know the work that he's doing for us.

Post-Conference Reminiscent Vignettes While Waiting in the Airport Terminal on the Way Back Home

Sweet saxophone-playing cool sugar daddy
He strode up to the podium.  No, he strolled up to the podium.  Gravelly voice, the color of sweet tea with lemon, graying fine hair, yet standing tall with old man swag.  A rigorous academic, a musician at heart, and not giving a darn cause he's been around this long and knows he still looks good.  He killed the ladies back in the day.  Swept 'em up.  You know he did.  When he played Coltrane, I had to admit this fact: Had he been my music professor, I would been unashamedly present during office hours, asking all sorts of questions.

Blind chemist
A young woman with three accompaniments: an assistant, a cane, and a hijab.  On the way out of a plenary session I accidentally bumped into her. Oh, God, I'm so sorry, excuse me.  How you gonna bump into a blind person?  It would have been understandable if it were the other way around, sheesh.  She was forgiving and we struck up a conversation.  She told me her story, with one constant refrain: People didn't think she could do it.  Yet here she was, a Muslim blind woman with a PhD in chemistry.  "Are there any other blind chemists?" she asked.  "I know others like me have finished their degrees, but have they stayed in academia?" The question struck deep, partly because I recognized it on some level.  That Lorraine Hansberry quotation: "The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely."  I teared up, not out of pity, but out of admiration.  She is a person, a strong, persistent, brilliant, unique person who exists and is making her voice heard.

"Your mom was my professor's ESL teacher?"
Totally on that black-girl-nerd-academic-feeling-each-other's-work kick with a Haitian-American professor.  Talking about my project and the Caribbean and having helped my professor edit her new book that just came out about Dominican identity.  "She's the first Dominican professor at Harvard," I said, proudly.  "Wait, are you talking about ____?" she asked.  YES!  "What??!  How do you know her?"  "Girl, my mom was her ESL teacher back in the day."  Mind so blown.  Wait till I tell my prof I met her old ESL teacher's daughter who is now a professor.  What a small, ridiculous world.

Excuse me, may I slide into this Spanglish?
During lunch alongside two Latino guys going at it in furious Spanglish.  I politely inserted myself into the convo in Spanish and without skipping a beat, the three of us were going at it, talking about our work, throwing out sources and if we hadn't heard of the source, furiously writing it down for later review.  We interwove English and Spanish.  Switching over when it felt easier, or when it felt right.  They seemed interested in and impressed by my project, and I felt honored to be welcomed into that moment, this space where I could join in, participate in a predominantly Latino mode of expression even though I'm not Latina.

Bits and pieces
A Mexican-American roommate specializing in Italian language and Italian medieval history and culture.  A senior professor whose work I cited in my dissertation, and I teared up when I realized, yes, he was that guy who wrote that book on slavery in Peru and that he was a Ford Fellow, too. Reconnecting with someone I originally met when I was a study abroad program assistant in Cuba.  This refreshing time and space.  Being a part of something special, valuable and rare.  I don't take it for granted.

So Far, So Good

Often times, I come home and my brain is just worn out.  All I want to do is munch microwave popcorn while being mesmerized by clip after clip of cooking videos on Facebook.  There's something about those recipe videos that are comforting,  You can witness the accelerated process of the transformation of a few ingredients into something delicious.  They're just satisfying to watch.

Sometimes it feels like this person who is not me but is me is doing stuff that the real me wouldn't do.  The real me just wants to be a bum, eat Nutella, drink loads of La Croix and watch Chopped.  But this other me is a professor, doing all this professorial stuff, having an office and preparing for conferences and soliciting funds to bring Afro-Latina writers to her institution.  The other me has a monogrammed tote bag in which I ferry books and folders to and from Accelerated Elementary Spanish and Advanced Spanish Conversation and makes plans to Skype in Afro-Peruvian activists to chat with her students.  If I just consider the other me, I think, well, maybe I'm doing all right.  But then the real me reminds me of who I actually am: A lazy, time-wasting girl who wishes that all she had to do was nothing.

Uncertainty is the word of the day.  Unsure of where I'll be after this year.  Having to apply for a new job after having barely started this one.  The jury is still out on whether a bun has been successfully placed in the oven.  I have a husband in the thick of comps, prospectus writing and conference preparation.  A mother-in-law and stepfather-in-law visit on the horizon, and I can already hear my anxiety-laced heart beating with the desire for everything to be planned, perfect and enjoyable.

I want to let the waves just wash over me.  They're inevitable.  Ceaseless.  Life is going to happen and it's messy, unstructured and uncertain, so just let the life waves come.  You can't stop them, so why expend precious energy trying to order and contain something as powerful and constant as the tide? There is a tide in the affairs of men...

We loved our last pastor.  Red-haired, red-faced, Southern as a ripened Georgia peach, and compassionate in surprising ways.  One bright Sunday morning, he preached a message called "So Far, So Good."  Just the idea that the future is unknowable and ungraspable, and that you may not presently be where you would like to eventually be, but what we can take comfort in is the fact that so far, God has been faithful.  So far, so good.

Right now, I love the house we're in.  Spacious.  Quiet.  Meals outside on the patio.  Natural light pouring in through the blinds.  Right now, I enjoy the classes I teach.  Eager, motivated students.  A space where I can be the teacher I've always been.  Right now, I cherish the connection I have with my husband.  A sweet, handsome, earnest man.  I know that what he does is for us.  I know that when we get pregnant, he will be present, supportive.  Right now, I appreciate the church we've decided to make our home.  A tiny bit of a drive, but worth it for its vibrancy and diversity.  So far, so good.

From the Pen of the Procrastinating Perfectionist Professor

At least I have an office this time.

Well, I suppose I had an office in my previous life, but it was a shared office = you ain't gettin nothin done unless you're in there alone.  And then in my previous life 2.0, after I was divested of an office due to being relieved of teaching responsibilities (due to winning a dissertation fellowship!), I became the sole proprietor of a library carrel = a windowless dungeon in which to eke out a pitiful existence as a dissertation-writing peon.

So, basically, being a professor means that the places in which my procrastinating goes down are a little more spacious and better furnished.  

The worst thing about my particular strain of procrastination is that I'm also a perfectionist.  It's like, how can you be a procrastinator AND a perfectionist?  Like, if you really cared about things being perfect, you'd start getting stuff done earlier, right?  But sometimes I have a lot inertia to overcome, and it takes a while for the paralyzing fog to subside before the shrill signal of "Omg, I have LOTS of stuff to get done" finally makes its way to my brain.  And by that time, it's too late to be perfect or even come close.  But, boy, do I still try.

I am freaking out about the first day of class, this coming Monday, but I just have accept that I'm going to be nervous and soldier on.  At least I have the first day agenda kind of worked out: 1. A bit of Spanish banter to sort of gauge my students' levels and ending by saying in English "Well, that's just to give you a little taste of what we're going to be doing in this class..." 2. Show a few images of me in the places I've traveled to talk about my background and interests and share with them a little about who I am.  3. Call roll (check to see if there are any "preferred names") 4. Do a getting to know you activity: Put "getting to know you" questions in a hat, have each student draw one out, then go around the room, having each student restate their names and answer the question. 5. Go over the syllabus. That's doable.

On my way back to my car after the marathon of meetings the other day, I ran into a black family, a mom, dad and daughter.  I smiled and waved and saw them again before I was about to pull out of the parking lot.  I stopped and introduced myself and they seemed relieved to see me. The father expressed being glad to see me because "there's so few of us here" and the mother expressed being worried because she didn't want her daughter to be "the only one."  I saw my mom and dad in them and I told them I completely understood.  I talked to them about the commitment the institution is making to foster a conversation on diversity and that they have taken concrete steps to improve in areas in which they know they're lacking.  We exchanged contact info and I told the daughter to let me know if she ever needed anything or wanted to talk.  I was so glad I happened to run into them.  Not too long ago, I was in that girl's shoes, and I know how lonely it can be to be "the only one."  If there's anything I can do to make her feel a little less alone, I'd like to help.

I met "the other" professor yesterday and was just grateful to see her face.  Our interests are very similar and she expressed interest in working together in the future.  She just seemed like a cool aunt.  She reminded me of my adviser in a way.  It's just refreshing to know I'll be able to count on her support.

So, I was told that I'm "already charming a lot of people here."  An overwhelmingly large part of my "charm" is, I'm sure, attributable to my dorky ability to recite the general prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in its original Middle English.  See, we have this embarrassing luncheon where the program chairs introduce all the new people.  The program chair sent me a questionnaire beforehand and for "What is a little known fact about you?" I mentioned my Chaucer shtick.  After the luncheon, of course the Chaucer specialist approached me wanted me to show him my chops and I indulged him, and then later during a division meeting, someone else brought it up and I performed it for the whole division, all storyteller-like.  Here beginneth the book of the tales of Canterbury... Everyone was like, amazed.  I mean, I had to memorize it in 12th grade and my teacher gave us a recording of this man reading it with all the correct pronunciation and everything to help, so that's what I did.  And I've never been able to get it out of my head since.  I wish I could like get on a game show or something and recite it to win a million dollars.  But if, at the very least, it scores me a few charm points, I guess that counts for something.

Sigh...back to my procrastinating perfectionism.

Other Kinds

Eventually it comes to you: the thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.

—Lorraine Hansberry

If there is one thing I wish my previously-single self could have understood, it is that marriage only alleviates one kind of loneliness:  The yearning for a partner.  Someone to "do life" with.  A companion who will be there to cherish and encourage you.  Someone you can be on a team with and raise a family with.  Someone who somehow, despite your many failings and flaws, still loves you.

But there are other kinds.

Waking up in the morning, your partner still asleep, the gray morning light seeping in through the blinds with the sound of rain.

Walking out to the mailbox, the lowing of grazing cattle, the soft whoosh of unconcerned solitary cars passing you by.

Well-worn choruses strained through a too-loud sound system.  Earnest smiles and handshakes, curiosity held at bay.  The Word of God, quick and powerful, yet you can't help but feel pity for your unconceived children.  

A diversity workshop held at a country club. ("It was the only space that could accommodate this big of a group.")  A student in an undergraduate honors seminar: the only one. ("How does the African-American community feel about this?") A professor at a small liberal arts college: one of two. ("Have you met Valerie?")

A freckled, hazel-eyed husband who wants to please you, his caramel, kinky-haired wife.  You never thought the spaces between you would ever matter to you as much as they do.  The number 2016 has no modernizing effect on timeless things like families, hometowns, beliefs, lived experiences.

When someone asks "Where are you from?" you wish your answer could fit within the minutiae of getting-to-know-you small talk.  Instead, it's a narrative of your childhood trajectory from U.S. South to European South back to U.S. South at an older, more awkward age.  An explanation of sorts for why you don't have a Southern accent.

Your mom's voice on the other end sounding like the closest thing to home you know.  It's your parents' turn for Thanksgiving this year, you remind yourself.

You didn't get the tenure-track job.  She did.  When you meet her, you completely understand and agree with the reason why.  There are people in the world who are smarter, more experienced, and more qualified than you.  Face it and take it like a champ.

You never thought you'd one day find yourself wandering the aisles of Save-a-Lot in search of seltzer water.

"Why do you speak Spanish?"

After a technology orientation session today, upon reading my name tag and seeing that I'm a Spanish professor, an older professor asked me the above question.

Huh?

Why do I speak Spanish?

What an odd phrasing.  I actually responded that way to her, repeating the question and emphasizing the "why."  

"Well, yes, does your family speak Spanish or did you learn it...?"

Ah.  Now I get it.

You see, I'm also curious to know why someone chose to pursue the study of Spanish.  In such an event, I, and I'd venture, most people, would ask, "Why did you choose Spanish?" or "What made you interested in Spanish?"

But, why do you speak it?

The way she asked was very bothersome to me for a few reasons:

1. "Why do you speak Spanish?" would never be asked of a non-person of color.  It's assumed that if a non-person of color with a non-Hispanic name has the ability to speak Spanish, it's because they learned it.  But since I am a person of color, even though I do not have a Hispanic name or any other cultural markers which would somehow imply that Spanish is (one of) my native language(s), it's not assumed that I learned it.  Why is that?

2. Connected to point #1, "Why do you speak Spanish?" could imply that it somehow defies expectations or norms that I would/could speak Spanish.  Not that there's anything wrong with a situation defying someone's expectations.  But why does the prospect of a woman of color learning a second language defy expectations?  That's the real question.  What are your expectations of me and why?

3. Since I'm brown-skinned and perhaps ethnically ambiguous-looking to some people, asking "Why do you speak Spanish" is also shorthand for "What is your ethnicity, and is your ethnicity connected to your interest in/ability to speak Spanish?"  It highly bothers me when people I literally do not even know have a desire to place me, simply to satisfy their own curiosity.

First of all, how I identify is none of your business, even if it isn't readily apparent to you, especially if you don't know me, aren't really interested in fostering a relationship with me, and we haven't been engaged in a conversation where I happened to mention my racial identity or where my racial identity is even relevant in any way whatsoever.  Second of all, regular old black people, not ones with some kind of "exotic," "not-just-black" essence, as some seem keen to assign to me, just straight up born and raised in the U.S., raised by two black parents also born and raised in the U.S., can be and are interested in and have the capacity to learn foreign languages.  This should not be a mind-boggling prospect.

Why do I speak Spanish?  For the same reason you do anything you do, lady.  Because I want to.

I have a PhD. I am a professor.

I've had a bit of trouble wrapping my mind around those two facts.

It's just going to take a little time for me to "own" where I am educationally and professionally.

My brain is still functioning in grad student mode...it's been functioning in that mode for quite a while.  It's just this mode of deference to people who are professors, experts.  Planning my lessons as a teaching assistant within the confines of rigid, departmental syllabi.  But now that I am a professor, now that I am considered an expert (of sorts), now that I am tasked with creating my own syllabi, what now?  I have a lot of freedom at this institution, but I can't help thinking there's a "right way" to do everything and I can't shake the feeling that I don't know what I'm doing or that I might be somehow doing it "wrong." 

It seems like every milestone has a similar emotional structure.  Questioning whether there is a right way to go about things.  Feeling the weight of my ignorance.  Hoping I'm not somehow doing it wrong.  

After I got married, the question of the day was "How does it feel to be married?"  As if I would intrinsically change upon saying "I do."  I knew that my life would be different, that my mindset would have to change, but me, the me that I've always been, didn't feel any different.  I feel the same way about attaining my PhD.  "How does it feel to be a 'doctor'?"  I mean, I recognize and celebrate my achievement for what it is, but I don't feel any different.  I haven't attained an extra layer of confidence or security that I finally have it figured out or that I have it all together.  I feel like the same me that I was before.

I have a feeling that parenthood will follow the same emotional structure as the other milestones.  The recognition that you're undergoing another transition.  Questioning whether there is a right way to go about things.  Feeling the weight of my ignorance.  Hoping I'm not somehow doing it wrong.

And, while we're on the parenthood topic, well, first of all, who knows if things will happen the way that we're "planning" for them to.  Judging from my life's track record, chances are that they won't.  Still, I've been questioning whether our desired timing is advisable.  But after thinking about it for a while, I just feel like it is as good a time as any.  Maybe even better in some ways.  This is my first year at a new place.  At this institution, first-year faculty are never tasked with service responsibilities, and because my position is visiting, I'm not on the tenure clock.  My work responsibilities are as light as they probably ever will be for a while.  So, we'll see.

Move

View from the front of our new home.

I've moved several times in my life.  As an adult, I've moved literally 5 times. (Not including my stints abroad.)  This recent move was my sixth.  So, it's not like I've never done it before.  But this time was definitely different.  This is the first time I've moved with someone else.  Of course, I was glad to be on a team with someone for something as exhausting as a major move, but I could feel an emotional weight tied up in this move that I hadn't felt before.  It's just the idea of my destiny being bound to someone else's.  The additional responsibility of considering someone else's well-being.  I have to admit I'm still not accustomed to it.  I'm still not used to the hyper-awareness that everything involving me by default involves my partner and vice versa.

A few days before we left, we found that our storage unit had been broken into and the majority of our wedding gifts stolen.  It was a surreal, soul-crushing discovery.  More than the violation of being robbed was the violation of the sacrifice and generosity of our loved ones.  We did everything we could and were supposed to do (informed the storage company, filed a police report, filed an insurance claim).  But in the end, I've accepted the fact that they are things, we aren't getting the things back and the situation was and is out of our hands.  I know that God is a provider and a restorer.  We have everything we need, and although I don't know how, when, or in what form, I know He is going to restore what was taken from us.  I am convinced of it.

So, we're here, settling in, and enjoying living in a 3br/2ba house, a welcome change from our sardine can student apartment.  We both have our work cut out for us: me, starting a new job and essentially having to look for a new one not long after this one starts, him: preparing for comps, successfully passing them and then writing a prospectus and successfully defending it.  The prospect of possibly throwing a baby into this mix seems insane, but that's one more thing we'll have to trust God with.  If I focus on the unknowns, I could really work myself up into a lather.  But no.  I'm going to focus on the knowns: We have a nice place to live, I have a job and plenty of support from my colleagues, my husband is on track to finish his program in a timely manner, and God is for us.  We are going to work together, trust together and have faith that where we fall short, God's grace will make up the difference.

Defense Day

Today is the day.  The day I get to add three letters to my name: P, H and D!  I will stand before my committee (and a few other supporters), summarize my project, answer questions and have a "conversation" about my project as well as my future research trajectory.  The only talking I'll do will last about 10-15 minutes at the beginning, and the rest will be listening to and responding to my committee.  I'm not taking it lightly, but I'm not freaking out about it either.  So far, I've gotten very positive feedback and I feel confident about it.   Still, there may be recommendations for revisions before I submit my last and final draft to the Graduate School, but post-defense revisions are pretty standard, and I don't feel like they'll be anything major.  I'm ready to do this!

I'm happy now that my defense date is finally here.  But getting my defense date set...that's another story.  A saga.  It was originally set for yesterday, but there was an unfortunate event of a committee member being involved in an accident—thankfully she's okay, and a bit of back and forth about the rescheduled day and time.  I have to admit I'm a little bummed that the committee member who was injured won't be able to participate today, but nevertheless, we're here, and we're forging ahead.

Arriving at this day has caused me to look back.  To look back at where I was when I started this program and compare it to where I am now.  When I started this program, I was coming from a pretty messed up emotional, spiritual, and vocational situation.  Starting the PhD wasn't necessarily my dream and honestly, I initially envisioned it as an escape, a way to provide myself with a more stable environment and with an opportunity to be in a place where I always thrived: in an academic setting.  Being in a PhD program may not have been what I always wanted, but once I settled in, I was convinced that I was where I needed to be.  And I am grateful.

To all the people who always asked "when I was going to settle down" or commented about how I was "always in school" or "always going off somewhere" as an implication that pursuing an education and a career, studying abroad, etc. would somehow encase me in a husband-repellent shell, I shall now passively-aggressively address you:

I've got to admit, I almost believed you.  I mean, I always hoped I would "settle down" sometime, but I knew I couldn't let my desire for marriage and family prevent me from exploring.  But I almost believed that maybe, somehow, all my exploring was futile and that no one would ever be up to the challenge of loving over-educated-yet-deeply-churchified, identity-insecure, raised-in-weird-worlds, contradictory me.  I fancied myself a rare, endangered species.  A human Mona Lisa who may be admired, but remain undecipherable and alone, a cold and lonely, lovely work of art.  I almost believed you.  I didn't regret starting my PhD, but believed that maybe it was taking me further from "settling down" after all.

But God has a real sense of humor, doesn't He?  What I thought was taking me further from finding a life partner was actually what led me straight to him.  I guarantee you that the last place I imagined I would ever find a man was in a PhD program.  Seriously.  But here we are, having been married for a little over a year now.

So, to you, I say sitchoself ALL the way down.  Stop setting up these false dichotomies for women.  Either pursue a career OR pursue marriage and family.  Either get a "secular" education and be concerned with things of the world OR get involved in ministry and be concerned with the Kingdom of God.  These are not mutually exclusive desires or realities.  I can pursue a career AND have a healthy marriage and family.  I can get a "secular" education AND use it to further the Kingdom.  Last year, I got my Mrs., this year, I'm getting my PhD, and next year?  We'll see.  I am doing it all, by the grace of God.

Groundhog Day

A month or so ago I watched that movie on Netflix with P because it's set in the town where he's from.  The same day happens over and over again to Bill Murray.  To comic effect.

Right now, though, I'm not talking about comic effect in this particular iteration of Groundhog Day.  I'm talking about the same thing happening over and over again with respect to encounters between black men and white police officers.

These are the times that I want to absolutely withdraw.  The times where I want to shut out the world.  The times I want to deactivate my Facebook account because it's overwhelming.

I want to laugh to keep from crying at the juxtaposition between posts engaging the crisis at hand and the usual mundane posts of pictures of people's kids and dogs and the minutiae of their bland, oblivious lives.

I think social media is used and can be used effectively for activism.  Many present-day social justice movements are social media-driven, they have effectively raised awareness of many causes, and I applaud their efforts.

But what about my "efforts"?

There is a stubborn, selfish, cowardly side of myself that refuses to engage.  Why should I expose my pain, anger, sadness or ideas to people who may or may not even be actual "friends"?  To people who could view my feelings on the matter at hand as a morsel laid out for their consumption?  It's akin to the feeling I have when non-black people ask me how I did my hair if I show up somewhere with a new 'do.  Like, why do you want to know?  You don't understand how my hair works, so you wouldn't understand how I did whatever I did to it, first of all.  Second of all, you couldn't replicate the look on your own hair, so it's not like you're asking so that you could try it out yourself.  It's just this need to satisfy your own curiosity while you have nothing at stake and nothing to contribute.  My hair has some pretty personal, political, emotionally fraught things attached to it.  It's such an important part of black womanhood and an important part of black women's self-image and self-esteem.  My hair, doing my hair, etc. holds an emotional weight that people without black hair can't even begin to understand.  Why should I explain to you what I did to it just for you to have the satisfaction of knowing?

There is another side of myself, equally stubborn, selfish and cowardly, but also insecure, that wishes to engage.  But then I question my reasons for wanting to engage.  So that I can prove to people that I'm "woke" and "conscious" and black enough?  To remind people that I'm still black (albeit light-skinned and married to a white man) have a black dad and black brothers (any of the men killed could very well have been them) and express that I'm anxious about raising biracial black children in this world?  So that I could show everyone that, honestly, I do care, that, seriously, I am affected by this senselessness?  So I can "be real" and dispel any notion that I'm "a part of the problem" by not "speaking out"?  I want to rid myself of this desire to prove my authenticity.  It's haunted me ever since my family moved from a military base in Italy to the deep South and I made the mistake of opening up my mouth.

Everything in my mind is connected.  When things happen in my life and in the world, the web of my brain connects the events like they're some kind of literary motif.

A day before the back to back police shootings of black men, before this script replayed that is so time-worn we're desensitized to it, I went to a restaurant with P and my mother-in-law for breakfast in the overwhelmingly white small town P is from.  As soon as we walked in, people began to stare at us.  Very blatantly.  It felt hostile.  P and I noticed it right away.  It wasn't the first time we've been gawked at, but this time was pretty flagrant.  Eventually P and MIL suggested we leave, so we did.  I didn't necessarily feel we should have left, but I just went along.  We talked about it afterward, but we never once used the words "race" or "racism" or "interracial couple."  We used phrases like "ignorance" and "close-minded" instead.  The fact that people were staring because I was black and/or because I was a black girl with a white guy/white family was implied, understood, but not articulated.

I know the answer is not to withdraw and shut out the world.  You can't.  To leave things to self-resolve.  They often won't.

I know what reality is and it saddens me.  It sickens me.  I want to find a place where we can settle down, start a family.  I want a safe, welcoming place for us.  But does such a place even exist?

Acknowledgements

I thought this day would never come.  I submitted a complete, revised dissertation to my adviser Monday night.

I wrote a dissertation.

Yup.  Past tense.  I wrote it.  I did it.  It's done.  It's over.  It is finished.

Except...not quite yet.  I still have my defense coming up: I will stand before my committee (wearing an appropriate power suit) and summarize my project, emphasizing its contribution to the field, after which my committee will commence to mercilessly grill me.

Well...not quite that bad, but you get the idea.

Anyway, one of the last things I wrote was my acknowledgments.  I sat and thought of all the people who have supported, encouraged, inspired and guided me throughout my academic career.  It was a really humbling exercise.  The realization of how much other people have contributed to and have been absolutely essential to my success...it's really humbling.

Acknowledgement is what I often fail to do consistently with God.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.  And when I fail to acknowledge Him, I start to think that it's all up to me and start getting anxious and fearful.  I begin to forget that He's got this; He always has and He always will.

Suffice it to say that the last paragraph of my acknowledgements was an unashamed shout out to the good Lord.  I felt like a gangsta rapper accepting an award.  "I wanna thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ..."  Like, um, God ain't pleased with your violent, misogynistic materialism, son.  Just sayin.  But I digress.

Intellectualism is looked down upon in the church world, and faith is looked down upon in academia.  But the former didn't stop me from pursuing my PhD, and the latter didn't stop me from acknowledging God and quoting the Word in my dissertation.

One of the life lessons I still haven't mastered yet is learning not to care.  Learning to just be who I am, who I know I am, who I was created to be, be content with it, accept it, embrace it, and not care.  I'll get there one day.

But in the meantime, as of July 20, you can address me as Dr. while I'm still figuring it all out.

I'm not brave.

I'm not brave.

I want things to stay as they are, truth be told.

I prefer an even keel.  A steady flow of manageable sameness.

As much as I issue challenges, even if they remain in my head, the truth is that I don't like to be challenged myself.

As much as I'm willing to admit that there are things I don't know and claim that I'm always open to learning, the truth is that I think I'm right about the things I do know (or think I know) and that I'm usually pretty confident about my rightness.

I hate messy things.  They unnerve me.  I prefer order.  I want things to just stay in place.

I care too much about what goes on in other people's heads.  I care too much about how I am perceived by others.  I often imagine others' incriminating, head-shaking disappointment once they actually discovered who I am, what I value, what I believe, what my views are, what my aspirations are.  I consistently imagine being exposed as a fraud.  You don't belong, you know you don't belong, but for some reason you want people to believe that you do.  

I don't like being faced with difficult questions.  Acknowledging my cowardice, I'd rather ignore them and let them somehow self-resolve.  Just because I'm not God doesn't mean that I'm completely powerless, but I'd rather allow my share of powerlessness to be brought into relief and it push me along like a gentle current.

I usually hang back.  Let other people hurl themselves into the fray.  Let other people be bold and declarative.  Let other people draw a decisive line in the sand and dare others to cross it.  Let other people respond appropriately.  I could even be accused of apathy.  Let other people be bothered.

I want to be loved.  Like any human being, I want people to care about me.  But I don't want fierce emotional stakes attached to me.  I can be a disappointment, and failing to meet others' expectations weighs heavy.

I fear my ordered, constructed, predictable, manageable space becoming suddenly unzipped.  I'd stand helplessly as all the unresolved jumble I'd carefully stowed away came tumbling out in a rush.  I would handle it.  Somehow, I always do.  But it would be one more niggling thing to occasionally jostle my mind and make me cringe to remember that time when.

Facebook and the Garden of Eden

I often have conversations with my husband and my best friend about the insidious nature of Facebook.  I'm back to being more or less active on it, but I've downloaded an app to block access to it during working hours of the day in an attempt to boost my productivity.

Anyway, the main thing about Facebook is that it's essentially a highlight reel of people's lives.  And people make the mistake of interpreting that highlight reel as the norm of people's lives and they misguidedly compare the norm of their own lives to the highlight reel of someone else's. (Check out this well-documented study.)  Facebook essentially enables us to ignore the many positive aspects of where we are in life and ruminate over what we don't have, what we haven't achieved, what relationships we haven't attained, what we haven't done with our kids because we've allowed ourselves to believe an inaccurate version of other people's lives.

A couple of Wednesday nights ago, my pastor used the current NBA playoffs as an example of this phenomenon during his lesson.  He mentioned that when you go and look at the replays of the latest game with the Golden State Warriors, what you see is Steph Curry and Klay Thompson sinking three pointer after three pointer.  What you don't see is all the shots they missed.

When we believe that there's something "better" out there that is somehow being denied us, we believe a lie.  If you have a relationship with God and you believe He is withholding something "better" from you, you've accepted a lie about the nature of God.

Eve fell into the same trap in the Garden of Eden.  She was in a literal paradise.  She could eat freely of every tree of the Garden.  But the adversary deceived her into believing that God was withholding something better from her.  Instead of enjoying the beauty and provision that surrounded her, she focused in on what she didn't have.  The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil became her Facebook newsfeed, distracting her from the truth that she already had everything she needed.

Are there things in life I desire that I haven't yet attained?  Absolutely.  Let's be honest.  I'd like to be a mother.  I'd like to own a home.  I'd like job security instead of this prolonged life of going from gig to gig.  I'd like to put down roots somewhere instead of continuing to bounce around all over the place.  But are my needs being met?  Do I have a wealth of things to be thankful for?  Am I surrounded by wonder and beauty and love?  Absolutely.  I am where I am for a reason.  Where I am now is not where I will always be.  So, God, help me to appreciate the now.  Help me to turn away from fruitlessly, foolishly, futilely comparing myself with others.  Help me to believe that You are who You say You are.

For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

— Psalm 84:11

Out, @$%&ed spot!

It's a quote from Shakespeare.  Macbeth to be exact. Act V, scene i.  Lady Macbeth sleep walking and talking, feeling all kinds of guilty because she was the mastermind behind her husband's shanking of Duncan.  She tries in vain to rid herself of the "spot" of blood that taints her conscience.

So, I finally got my teeth cleaned today.  It had been an embarrassingly long time since I last had my teeth cleaned (can't remember the last time I had dental insurance, and I still don't, but they had a $99 summer teeth cleaning special at the Student Health Center dental clinic, so I said what the hey), but I wasn't overly worried about it because my dental hygiene game is on point.  If there's one thing I absolutely pride myself on, it's the state of my teeth.  I obsessively take care of my chompers.  Brush at least twice a day, floss like it's the last step in the plan of salvation.  I don't play.  Ever since I got my first cavity at 19, I became a born again flosser.

The hygienist who cleaned my teeth was all chirpy and cheery about the state of my teeth.  All my x-rays looked good, my teeth were beautiful, she said.  She said that whenever I get a job offering dental benefits that she would recommend I opt out because with my teeth, I would save money just paying for a yearly check up out of pocket.  I was all beaming and excited.  But then the dentist came in and gave me a once over before I could leave.  And he said I had a teeny tiny cavity.  Very minor, mind you, nothing to be alarmed about, but a teeny tiny cavity nonetheless.  (The hygienist later said she didn't say anything to me about it at first because it was so minor she didn't think the dentist would recommend getting it fixed.) A filling I had slightly cracked, and a bit of bacteria got in.  Did I want to see it?  He gave me a mirror to hold up, and there it was, reflected in his little tooth mirror inside of my mouth, on the back of my first molar on the upper right hand side.  A tiny black spot.

Oh.  Em.  Gee.

My brain went into full Lady Macbeth mode.  How dare a wretched little black spot decide to manifest itself on my molar?  This cannot be.  No, ma'am and no, sir.  Nawl.  Nah.  A tiny black spot does NOT have permission to exist on a SINGLE ONE of my carefully brushed, obsessively flossed teeth!  Do you hear me, denizens of the underworld of oral bacteria?!  I have a (very infinitesimally, completely unnoticeably) discolored tooth, and I am NOT here for it.

I wanted to karate chop and drop kick the air.  I wanted to throw myself onto the floor and pitch a two-year-old style screaming fit because a tiny black spot had utterly dashed all of my glorious dreams of superior oral grandeur.

One tiny spot.  A cornucopia of shame.

"Have Done" List

I always make "to do" lists, so it's time for a "have done" list.

Have Done:

1. Submitted a revision of my last chapter of analysis to my adviser.  All that's left is a revision of my intro, and then, on to the conclusion.  I still have a bit of work to do, but I'm SO CLOSE to finishing.  I can't believe it.

2. Made homemade chicken noodle soup.  I'm really proud of myself, like, I feel legit.  I saved a couple of carcasses from roast chickens P and I had.  I picked off the little fragments of meat, put it aside.  Broke the carcasses up and browned the bones in some olive oil.  Added celery, carrots, onion, thyme, a bit of rosemary, some pepper, 3 quarts of water and let that sucker simmer for an hour and a half.  Afterward, I strained the chicken stock, then put it back on to simmer for about 20 mins adding some fresh onions, carrots, celery, and other seasonings to taste.  While that was simmering, I boiled just about a cup of dried egg noodles.  After that, I added the egg noodles and the meat I set aside, and let it simmer for about 5 more minutes.  Ridonculous.

3. Spent the past three Friday mornings praying with my husband for one hour.  It started as a prayer chain at our church the first couple of times (you know, individuals or families sign up for an hour), but then we wanted to keep doing it together on our own.  I'm the worst with consistent spiritual discipline.  I know I am.  But when you're doing it with someone else...there's just something very powerful and motivating about it.  Setting time aside to pray together has bonded us in ways that nothing else can.  I wish we would have started doing this a long time ago, and it's something I really hope we continue to do, in some way, in the future.

Flowers

My first anniversary flowers are dying.  They said, "We're done.  Enjoy our decaying beauty."

Snapshot

Getting ready for church this morning.  My husband was already dressed, and I thought he was sipping his cup of coffee on our green couch waiting for me while I fiddled with my hair for the thousandth time.  "Honey?  Honey?"  Where was he?  Not on the couch.  The door was ajar and I found him standing outside with one hand in his pocket, the other holding his to-go cup.  He was enjoying the beautiful morning, and I was taken by the sight of him.  Relaxed in a suit and tie, staring out into nature.  I wanted to capture that moment and press it so close to me.

On the Job Training

(Sigh.) That dirty dirty D.

It's getting done, though.  I turned in my intro before my anniversary, and now I've plunged back into tedious editing.  Trying to have a revised version of my second chapter of analysis submitted to committee by the end of the week.

I've never written a dissertation before, (and in the mighty, powerful name of Jesus, I will never write another one), but somehow it's getting done.  Mind you, there are all kinds of tips and tricks out there.  All kinds of Dissertation Writing 101 out there for me to take advantage of.  Not to say that I haven't consulted anyone or any resources to help, but in the end, it's kind of like, ey, saddown and write.  That's what it comes down to.  Sitcho self down, stop playing games, and write.  Tips and tricks be durned. 

Now, in order to saddown and write, you have to prepare yourself.  You have to have done some extensive reading, note taking, organizing and outlining.  If you just saddown and write with no plan and no preparation, it's a recipe for disaster.  But my point is that at some point all the tips and tricks and advice come secondary to actually getting the thing written, and you can't worry about whether you're correctly following step five of Dissertation Writing 101 or what have you.  At some point you have to just do it and trust in your ability as an academic that you're going to produce something worthwhile.

I started thinking about all of these other things that I'm doing now or have done that have all kinds of advice, tips, etc. attached to it, but in the end, you just have to prepare, go for it, and trust:

1. Going natural.  It's been almost a year since I last got down with the Soft and Beautiful burn your scalp up to straighten your hair out creamy crack.  And my, my, my, there is everything under the sun out there to advise black women on the best ways to "transition."  The best products to use.  The best twist-out techniques.  But at some point, I had to stop being afraid I was going to "mess up my hair," stop being discouraged by people who warned me how hard it was going to be, and somehow just figure out a way to make it work for me and my hair.  And so far, so good.  Bantu knots? Yaaaassss!

2. Getting married.  We did pre-marital counseling, read books and did all the things you do when you're about to get married.  I listened to advice and tried not to get too annoyed at the people who always wanted to warn us about how "hard" marriage is.  But once we said "I do," we were the ones who had to wake up next to each other every morning from there on out.  We had to jump in there and trust each other and God to make it work.

I have a feeling that all of the other transitions we have coming up are going to be somehow the same way.  Moving to another state.  Starting a new job.  Starting a family.  Sure, you have to prepare, but in the end, there's only so much you can do.  In the end, I feel like we all just end up jumping in and getting on the job training.

One Year

Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our one-year anniversary.

Time flies.  It's so cliche, but it's the only thing I can think of to say to describe how unbelievable it is that we have already been married for a year.  We still have our wedding vows taped to the mirror in our bedroom.  We still have unopened, unused wedding gifts in our little storage unit.  We haven't even dried ourselves off with all the towels we received as gifts yet.  We wash clothes once a week, and we just keep washing and reusing the same towels.

They say the first year is the hardest, but if this is the hardest its going to be, I think we're going to be fine.  Contrary to popular belief, we are not these adorable little lovebirds who flit around from love cloud to love cloud.  At least not 100% of the time.  We've had our moments of conflict and discomfort and uncertainty.  And it hasn't been the end of the world.  What initially drew us together is what always draws us back together.  Believing in that, knowing that, is one of the most comforting, secure truths about our marriage.

What I've always said about my husband is that who he is is what I need.  I feel like it's my slogan for why I married him.  There's something holy about the whole thing, why he is who I need.  Even though I still don't believe in the idea of "The One," I do believe God brought us together.  And I do believe God knew something, all along, that I couldn't have ever known about myself and my needs.  There are many reasons I am who I am, and there are many reasons my husband is who he is, but one of those reasons is us.  Who we are together.

There are so many profoundly spiritual aspects of marriage I've pondered that parallel the dynamics of our relationship with God.  Love, forgiveness, acceptance, communion, communication, intimacy.  Even the idea that you can never really 100% know a person, there's something about them that will always remain a mystery to you, but that love demands you take a chance on them.  It takes faith to commit yourself to someone for life.

When I look at my husband, sure, I'm pretty happy that I lucked out with a handsome guy.  An adorable dimple when he smiles.  Thick eyebrows over long-lashed, deep set, downturned hazel eyes. He has smiling eyes.  The kind that smile to a greater degree than his lips.  I'm also pretty happy he's still taller than me when I wear heels.  But more importantly, when I look at my husband, I see a man who simply loves me and wants to make me happy.  I see a man who is going to be a wonderful father.

I know so many things can change.  People change, situations change, goals change...so many things are subject to change.  I realize that.  How we are now is not how we will always be.  But that doesn't have to be negative.  I just have a lot of confidence that we will change and adapt to change together.  At the very end of his wedding vows to me, my husband repeated this line: "My love for you is here to stay."  That's one thing I can be sure of that will not change.  For either of us.

The Procrastinatory Minute: Newlywed Marriage Advice Edition

The healthy married couple handles conflict without either person feeling that the other is fundamentally rejecting the essence of who he or she is.

— L.L. Etnach

Back at It

If I can just ______, then I'll finally feel like _______.

If I could have a dime for each time the filling-in-the-blanks with any phrasal combination of my brain's choosing was NOT true...

It really seems like it would be true, like, when you finally attain that thing, you just know you're going to feel this certain way.  Well, let me qualify it, maybe it's true that you will feel a certain way, but the feeling never lasts.

If I had considered this when I was say, in my early to mid twenties, I would have thought that idea was depressing.  But now, it's kind of liberating.  Like, the realization that you cannot depend on any earthly event, accomplishment or situation to indefinitely "make you happy" lessens the insane pressure that comes with essentially worshiping the destination and forces you soak in the journey.

Enough philosophizing.  The current fill-in-the-blank combination which has once again proven itself untrue is "If I can just finish this last chapter, then I'll finally feel like I can breathe."

I mean, it felt amazing finally turning it in, but now the reality of the remainder of hard work that still lies ahead is sinking in.  Right now, I'm revising my very first analysis chapter per my adviser's comments.  While I'm thankful that my first draft was "solid" according to her, no red flags or fundamental unsoundness of my analysis were detected, most of my revisions are more complicated than rewording or moving around a sentence or two.  More like "reframing" entire sections, adding several bits of critical/theoretical support...tasks that aren't herculean, necessarily, but that can be time-consuming.  No quick fixes.  And I still have the introduction to contend with.  It's going to be a reworking of my prospectus, so at least I'm not starting from scratch.  But the intro is a pretty big deal, so it's not like I can just throw it together and dust off my hands.  The only thing I will concede is not a huge deal is the conclusion.  So, anyway, I'm back at it.

There is small cause for celebration, however, and it is that I won a Summer Doctoral Research Fellowship.  I'm praising the Lord because this will definitely make our lives easier before our big move.  P scored a summer class (which is not in danger of being cancelled, it's an online class and those fill up pretty quickly) and combined with my fellowship, we'll be good.  My sweet guy got me one of my yummy favorites, a strawberry shortcake, in honor of my accomplishment.  Yay!

I still have my work cut out for me, but it's all coming together and I have a lot to be grateful for.

Lemme tell you somn bout DIS gul

Ey, you heard bout dis gul?

Maaaaann, lemme tell you somn bout DIS gul, yo.

Yooooo, I heard she had finished some last chapter of analysis or somn like dat.

Yup.  Mmmhmm.  She was ackin all crazy and stuff cuz of some dissertation or somn, right?

Den she turn around and finally finish a draft of her last analysis chapter.

Sent it in to her adviser an errthang, fam!

Yeah, so I had heard that all she got to do now is start workin on dem revisions and stuff.

Den she gonna be writin a introduction and stuff.

Yeah, den she gon submit a super revised version with a conclusion and stuff.

Yup, yup.  I know, right?  Junk crazy, right?

Talmbout a defense date July 20.

Maaaaan, that's crazy, tho, right?

I had heard she had been workin and writin this thing for bout two years or somn and now she almost done, tho!

Daaaaang, man, that's crazy.  For real.

"Trying"

So many things don't make sense until you're staring it in the face.

I know I can be an annoying know-it-all.  A control freak who won't even let my husband cut a homemade pizza fresh out of the oven with a pizza cutter because I don't like the way he does it.  The way he does it pushes all the cheese and toppings out of place.  There's a certain way to do it to avoid that...here, just let me do it.  It's this idea that you know how things should be.  How things should be done.  What is "proper."  When I think about this personal quality, it annoys even me.  At least I'm self-aware.  But what I'm learning is that what's in your head of how things "should be" loses all credence in the face of what is.

I can also be kind of a prude.  Even after I got married, whenever couples would talk about "trying" to have a baby, I was just kind of weirded out by that whole terminology.  I often had to try to suppress unseemly images my creative brain would conjure up of said couple struggling, wincing, exerting effort, wiping sweat from their brows as they "tried."  Eww.  That's not the way I would talk about wanting to have a baby, I would think.

Maybe it has to do with the word "trying."  Normally it's associated with something precarious and difficult.  Like, something that takes extra physical exertion and mental skill.  I don't associate the connotations of "trying" with doing what it takes to conceive a child.  I mean, really?  It's not that complicated.  And I'd rather not picture people I'm casually having a conversation with "trying."  lol.  Like I said, I can be kind of a prude.

But...(there's always a but), now that the reality of planning to start a family is staring me in the face, I finally see the light.  "Trying" is kind of the only appropriate way to describe that particular circumstance.  I mean, we're all adults here, there are things that you do or don't do to prevent things from happening, and there are things that you start doing or stop doing to allow things to happen.  The most concise way to describe the process of allowing things to happen is "trying." 

I know, it seems like common sense, and of course I knew that people weren't really talking about the act of "trying" but more about their decision to be purposeful about conceiving, but still, it really didn't completely click for me until we began to think seriously about starting our own family.  Not too long ago, I began answering people's inquiries about our future family plans with "We're planning to start trying this fall."  Oh. em. gee.  Did I just use "trying" in the gross, conjuring of undesirable mental images sense?

I'm not a special snowflake.  I don't have a more "proper" sense of terminology or of anything else.  We're just like the millions of other couples in the world deciding when to start "trying" to have a baby.

I wonder if that's a part of what being a mother is like.  What I mean is, if part of being a mother is simply observing your child come to these universal conclusions.

Dear Anthony,

You were one of the ones who got on my last nerve, I swear.  One of the reasons I left that miserable job.  Yeah, that job.  The one that sucked the life out of me and turned me into someone I never want to be ever again in my life.  The one where I lost a bunch of weight, made a few messed up life decisions and quit in the middle of the year.

But back to you, Anthony.  You were a part of my worst class, 5th period. The class I had to take to and from lunch.  The class who stupidly brought little roasted potatoes back from lunch and treated me to an in-class food fight.  You were obnoxious, always finding an excuse to get up out of your seat, go to the bathroom, do anything but your work.  You were always getting into it with the other kids, although I know it wasn't always you.  I know, some of them would make fun of you and provoke you.  The truth is, even though I often viewed you as a "problem student," I knew that at heart you were a good kid.

One thing my brain keeps going back to concerning you is the time someone messed up your food at lunch.  I don't remember exactly what it was they did...like poured milk in it or something to make it inedible.  You got SO mad.  Oh, my God.  You nearly got into a fight with the kid over it and afterward, I remember us standing there in front of my classroom door, you still super heated over the whole thing, and me, talking to you to try to calm you down.  You were so upset, you started tearing up.  "That was my FOOD, man!" you kept repeating.  Suddenly, it hit me, and I felt ashamed.  The reason you were so upset, tears welling up in your eyes because some stupid kid poured milk in your lunch was because having lunch at school was probably the only time you got substantial food during the day.

Another thing surprised me.  When I finally announced that I was leaving, you were one of the most vocal ones crying out in protest.  "Pleeeeeassse don't leave, Miss Smith.  I'll change my ways, I'll be good in class, on God, if you just pleeeease don't leave us."  I remember cynically thinking, really?  Now you want to change your tune after putting me through hell?  I couldn't believe that you, of all people, were begging me to stay.  It was slightly amusing.

Anthony, I couldn't believe it when I got on Facebook yesterday and saw some of my former students, your former classmates, posting R.I.P messages about you. (Yes, some of them wanted to be my Facebook friend after I left, and I figured why not.)  I immediately messaged one of my most dependable students from that time and asked what had happened.  She told me that you were shot and killed the other night while playing dice with a group of others.  She didn't give me all the details, but I can fill in the blanks.  Some argument probably arose between you...I'm guessing money was probably at stake.

What a senseless killing.  What a senseless death.  I'm sorry, Anthony.  I'm sorry for you and your family and for all the people affected by losing you.

I thought about you for a long time yesterday.  I wondered if maybe I should have stuck with that miserable job until the end of the year.  I had the chance to affect your life in some way, but I was too demoralized, cynical and burnt out to think about anybody but myself.  I really hated where I was in my life during that time, but I'm really trying to learn that it's not always about me.  For what it's worth, I will always remember you.

Your former Spanish teacher,

Miss Señorita Smith

The Procrastinatory Minute: Music Edition

Another late night library date with my man.  Poor guy has been burning the midnight oil a lot lately.  It's his last semester of coursework.  The least I can do is drag my lazy carcass to the library with him to get a little more of my you-know-what written.

But what am I doing?  Regaling my readers with random songs I have to listen to.  You know how a random song pops up in your life and seizes you and then you have to keep listening to it and it keeps hitting you in the feels and you can't let it go until you've run it into the ground?  I hate the weird, cornball stuff I end up liking.  I really do.  It's embarrassing.  

#1.  "Dearly Departed" by Shakey Graves.  Just the name of the artist is so stupid.  But I was having a solitary lunch in this place downtown which specializes in pot pies and it came on the radio.  And it got its stupid catchy clutches into my brain.

#2. "Underneath" by Hanson.  I was reminiscing about the 90s with my husband and we started playing Hanson youTube videos and laughing.  But that little 90s reminiscence inspired me to add Hanson to my Pandora playlist.  And then I heard a Hanson song I'd never heard before that hit me DEEP in the feels.



#3. "Show Up" by John P. Kee.  You know I got that Contemporary Gospel box checked on Pandora, tho.  And when any John P. Kee song, but this one in particular, comes on, I'm in the kitchen with my mom on Sunday morning and I feel a warm blanket of home wrap around me.  Like someone put a big plate of some good food in front of me.  Like a black prayer warrior grandma just enveloped me in her ample bosom and she just bound the enemy and loosed every blessing in my life.  This is like the best dissertation writing song.  I have to listen to this on repeat sometimes.



 Sigh...let me try to type a few more lines...

Like a Wedding

Me and Lucía during the Q&A after the reading

That's how I would describe my latest feat of academic significance, organizing a campus visit with the author of one of the novels I analyzed in a chapter of my dissertation, Lucía Charún-Illescas.  I was pretty pleased with how everything turned out, and it was such a rare opportunity to meet her and expose students and colleagues to information about the black presence in Peru.

Anyway, there was so much planning: getting sponsorship, dealing with paperwork and rules and coordinating dates, making sure the bookstore would be there with copies of the book...and then during the visit: going to and from the airport to pick up the guest, running around to pick up food and supplies, making sure everything was in place.

And then, just like that, it was over.  Like I said, like a wedding.  All of this planning and agonizing over it, and then when it happens, everything's a blur and it's over.

All in all, it was well worth it, and I hope to stay in touch with Lucía in the future.  And now, back to writing my you-know-what.  I think I'm finally starting to see a tiny light at the end of this long tunnel.  And I have a defense date set: July 18.  Almost there...almost there.

Thirty-four

Wednesday was my birthday.  Since I am currently still off of the Face of the Book, I didn't get the annual perky, cute, heart-warming Happy Birthday messages plastered all over my wall.  It was my self-inflicted punishment for working slow as heck on my dissertation.  Oh, you don't want to finish this chapter?  No FB birthday messages for you, slacker.

Nevertheless, my big day was a sweet and lovely day in no small part due to my sweet and lovely handsome hunk of a man. I woke up to several cute and cozy small gifts with a lavender birthday card.  After wishing me happy birthday, he admitted sheepishly, "I didn't know what to get you."  I just cried, overwhelmed by his sweetness and sincere desire to please me.  I loved every single thing. He was also determined to make me a birthday cake, and, by George, he pulled it off.  Chocolate on chocolate with sprinkles and pink gel writing out "Feliz cumple Channy."  My husband bakes cakes, people.  And yes, he put 34 whole candles on that sucker and did light them and I did blow them out. (Not before I made a wish!)  He really helped me have a special day.

How did I get to be 34? When I turned 31, I called it my "Baskin Robbins birthday" (31 flavors, har har).  When I turned 32, I called it my "Magic Johnson birthday" (his jersey number).  When I turned 33, I jokingly called it my "age-Jesus-was-when-he-was-crucified birthday."  But now?  It's the last-year-before-my-fertility-takes-a-nose-dive birthday.

I know, I know.  I need to stop reading statistics online.  There's something to be said for educating yourself, but there comes a point where it becomes obsessive, and that's no fun.  To be frank, just my existence defies all kinds of statistics. The fact that I was raised in a two-parent black home with parents who never divorced. The fact that I spent my childhood in Italy.  The fact that I'm a college-educated, married black woman (the stats are brutal, y'all), married to a white man, at that.  The fact that I'm about to finish a PhD program.  The fact that I'm trilingual (more or less). I could go on...Can I just accept the fact that I defy stereotypes, statistics, norms, whatever and live with it?  If the statistics have often not applied to me with everything else, why would they now?

Things will happen when they happen.  The present is a gift.  I should celebrate it and take care of what I can today.  Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.

Friends

1. I have a friend who said if "Friends" were a black show, it would be called "Dawgs."  Wassup, dawg? This is the same friend who subversively invented a writer on the spot to counter the cultish, must-be-in-the-know and must-be-serious mono-ethnic culture of "whiters" in a Creative Writing program. She dramatically rolled lemons across the long workshop table as she began to read a poem about lemons.  Kidded me about an inappropriate and everlastingly embarrassing crush.  Burn me, Kram, burn me.  Other funny fragments of poems I remember: lemon tipped ears, made of your wax a thick brew, my fried pajamas, I'll rock you into, I put the cat back. She would walk through the quad collecting fall leaves listening to Al Green.  I'm so tired of  being alone, I'm so tired of on my own.  Long-armed, hair-netted, cigarette-smoked ladies sizzling up melts and fries and serving them up to drunken stragglers in a 24-hour on-campus diner.  Late-night giggling girls devouring the greasy fare, not caring if they were out of place.  The same friend who knew it was me who wrote that letter to the editor of the campus newspaper about ignorant frat boys in the elevator at the library before she saw my name at the end because of my use of the word "guffaw."  She used to high-five me for using SAT words.  She rebuked the devil in a drawing to cheer me from absurd infatuation: a Spanish professor nearly thrice my age.  Scolded a former suitor, claiming he had "coleslaw stained hands" (on this blog).  Red Lobster Ultimate Feast.  Discarded bowls of stiff Cream of Wheat and strewn sunflower seed shells.  I once gave her some candied sunflower seeds and flavored massage oil (the least scandalous of my offerings) in front of church ladies at her wedding shower.  She one-upped me when my time came, though.  Good.  An age old question, equal parts meta and hilarious: What if there were no hypothetical situations?

2. I have a friend who used to be my husband's Portuguese instructor before I knew he existed.  She was my Portuguese instructor, too, from that class I audited that summer before I got lazy and stopped going.  An English-language-learner story where I laughed myself to tears:  In Brazil, when you order ice cream, the word to use for "scoop" is bola.  So, if you wanted two scoops of ice cream?  Dois bolas.  Well, she learned that words don't always translate directly when she went into Ben and Jerry's and asked for "two balls."  Two literature nerds and frequent tea drinkers on my green couch.  Among many other things, I learned that my uncle looked like a samba singer she used to have a crush on.  Later we drank tea long distance over Skype while we suffered through the academic job market wringer together.  We laugh that we both ended up with dark-haired, introverted, bespectacled husbands.  This city and this program and this 5-year chunk of my life?  She's woven into it.  A refreshing constant.

3. I have a friend who ended up committing his whole life to me.  A shy guy wearing plaid, band tees and hoodies.  Skater punk with freckles and a big heart.  He used to be ashamed of being from a small town, couldn't wait to get out.  But now he's proud of where he's from.  That's what I remember him telling me on our second coffee date.  He asked if I wanted to hear him play open mic downtown.  Hipster coffee bar with a mini-stage.  He plays left-handed, like Jimi Hendrix.  My jaw dropped when I saw this shy guy transform into a passionate powerhouse from the first strum.  I remember a particular week we spent every single day together.  On the last day of that week, we bought guitar tuner batteries from Best Buy and kissed for the first time.  Now, I know he likes the toilet paper roll over instead of under.  Now, I make omelets for him that fall apart, but he doesn't care.  Now, I see glimpses of him as a father.  We still laugh about my response to a certain message he sent me on Facebook being nothing more than a single smiley face.  I didn't want him to think I liked him.