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.