Papers came in. I got behind in the reading. I felt exhausted by the late winter rhythms. Really, it’s just not early spring in the mid-atlantic. I woke up still sad about my -- our -- career decision. I couldn’t get any projects completed. I stopped cooking. And each day my legs felt heavier and heavier on the morning walk to the train station.
But this morning, after I numbered my remaining days in Philadelphia (88) on my desk calendar and bought a ticket to tonight’s ballet (Swan Lake), I started to feel just a hair lighter. I’m ready for a shift, for a move, for a dislodging.
A letter from a friend last week reflected on all of the major changes of the last few years. She reminded me that for so many of the previous years, I complained about my stagnation, but that in each of the last three winters, I’ve had major decisions to make: 2009 — whether to go to Bryn Mawr and speed through the end of my dissertation; 2010 — whether to get married and how to figure out what that might look like; 2011 — how to decide on the direction J and I would take.
I think I might be ready for stagnation again.
All this week I’ve wanted to write about last weekend’s NYTimes article about mommy blogging, but each time I sit down to my keyboard, I end up writing nothing more than this:
What does it means to blog without?
But that’s as far as I get. I want to think about conspicuous absences on blogs, about new domesticity, about the representations of class and childhood. I want to meander through Catherine Beecher’s Treatise on Domestic Economy on this space. But for all this desire, I’ve been writing very little.
Here’s to hoping that an evening ballet, a museum visit tomorrow, and the prospect of just 88 more days might get me thinking and writing and creating again.
1 comment:
It certainly isn't spring here yet, either, and I'm struggling with some of the same cruddiness, though not for the same reasons. I think a little late-winter doldrum is actually good for the soul. That said, I'm interested to read your writing about blogging! And to hear what you mean by "without." Being on the other side of the fence now in terms of having a baby, I have to say that my pre-baby life seems less "without" than ever. I love my life now, but I know I view mom blogs differently. I can see that in some ways they are coping mechanisms, as women try to figure out how to reintegrate/reorient their voice and interests with a new, very needy addition. :) I guess I've personally become less interested in the conspicuous absences because I feel like they are always actually present, if you look closely enough. Sometimes my blog helps me get through the day, or out of a funk, and it makes me feel connected to other people at a time when I am mostly alone with a small baby in my house. Like helping me notice the beauty in the life I've found myself in, right now. With or without doesn't really apply for me at the moment - I'm just here, now. And it turns out that there is a lot to take in and send out, even in a relatively circumscribed (for me) sphere.
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