I think I’m trying to sneak around myself lately. I wonder if this is something I can elucidate in a way that sheds light on my wariness of academia in general.
For starters, I should say that I’ve spent much of this quarter reflecting on how academic talk gets in the way of meaningful talk. (There’s a longer story around process and methodology here, but not one that’s necessarily relevant to this post.)
In any case, I realize that, as a graduate student, I have a perspicacious eye for self-editing. Papers are to be … polished. They are to exude clarity and they are to be a-personal, right? At least the ones that are accepted, are widely read, are seen as real literature. I realize all of these categories are heavily problematic; they are still a part of the reality within the current Ed. research regime.
And all of this is a digression to the real story:
Saturday morning, I woke up with an envelope sealed on my dining room table. I remembered writing a letter to a friend in the early hours of Saturday morning before going to sleep. I apparently failed to save a copy on my computer and also decided to seal it away with nothing but a name on the envelope, until an address could be ascertained.
On the back of the envelope, in my typically messy scrawl, lurking around the southwestern corner, I’d quoted Quincy Troupe for some reason: “There is nothing on the flipside of time but more time.” And that was it. Here I was, faced with the fact that I’d tried to deceive myself – in my weary state, I didn’t want the discerning eye of the alacritous critic and academician to edit the words I’d written. I can vaguely recall anecdotes and thoughts that likely went into the letter, but I can honestly say I don’t recall all of it.
And so I faced a dilemma: Do I send the letter sight un(academically)seen? Or do I pilfer the envelope that is not addressed to me, no longer mine, and sneak into my previous night’s thoughts to ensure I don’t embarrass myself?
I mailed it. I don’t even know if it has reached its intended recipient yet, so there’s no and then to this story. I guess I’m interested in the idea of removing the editor, the academic, the intellect from writing. Not all of the time, of course, but at least during the important times. I’ve been reading a collection of essays by Ander Monson and I’m struck by the way he both distances and confronts the personal in content and form that are unlike anything else I’ve read recently.
I’ve found files and loose papers of random writing that I don’t remember constructing. In one instance: a poem I remember writing – to the day – while sitting at the newsstand at Book Soup, never quite finding the one word that was missing. I remember the feeling of having lost this word at some point – that it was known by me, perhaps in a dream, or in the shower, or walking the dog, or any of the myriad places that words topple in front of us only to make a just as haphazard getaway. This scrap of paper sits on my table, it’s not awaiting an audience or an editor or a thesaurus; it’s awaiting completeness.
And I think that when I was writing that poem – a casual homage to a tertiary character from the adventures of El Gaviero – I was in a different space. Perhaps a different person. The approach I take to writing without the tearful eye of mind and research is one that feels different. It uses different muscles, the script in which I write literally changes (though it’s still just as messy). And I wonder what would happen if this were allowed to be an unsuppressed voice in research. What would theory, epistemology, pedagogy and all of those terribly overbearing words & ideas look like if we extended things toward a more fluid heart, toward a feeling, toward a hermeneutic of emotion and connection, “to lead you to an overwhelming question…”
Like the letter, perhaps this thought is still en route towards an unexpected conclusion. And like the letter, perhaps it’s better to simply click “publish” before the reigning king of academia returns to change this clause or that.
Tell people this is awesome:
