Novel to Me: Two Epiphanies for the Price of One

11 Jun 2010 2 Comments

by dawnrey in Self-care, Writing

I had a couple epiphanies recently. I was in a bookstore in a sketchy section of Philly, near Temple University, taking a break from a wonderful day of conference speakers at the Society for Disability Studies conference. My mind was swirling with new ideas; it was invigorating to be immersed in an academic setting again — a place where people shared fresh concepts and tried to come up with solutions to difficult issues. A place of theory and practical applications. Such a diversity of bodies and minds!

But back to my epiphany.

I was sitting there in the bookstore, staring out the window, letting myself be. That doesn’t happen very often, simply allowing my mind to go still. I had just finished reading Ann Patchett’s published speech to the graduating class of Sarah Lawrence college called “What Now?” I love Patchett’s writing, and I must say, this book was inspiring.

She reminded us that there are a myriad of paths one might take after graduation — a notion especially relevant to me, since I just graduated with my PhD a couple of weeks ago. Of course, I knew all this, right? As a reflective person, a self-aware person, a person who devours self-help books, I had heard everything she was saying. The idea that we can trust ourselves to find the right path, we can be whoever we want to be, and so on.

Listen.

There was something about the way she shared her own experiences with writing and observing the world, though, that caught my breath. Patchett describes graduating from the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop with a graduate degree and then immediately getting a job waitressing. It wasn’t until she stopped and listened, really listened to the stories all around her, of people, of places, that she began to be a writer.

Ping.

Something opened up inside me. Wide.

I realized that now was my time to write. I am in such a contemplative, vulnerable place that I must write. There’s nothing I’d rather be doing. In fact, it’s what I did before graduate school, and it’s what I did all throughout school, and it’s something I plan on doing until the day I die.

I must write.

So there was that epiphany. And on the heels of that, another.

Epiphany #2

Immediately after epiphany #1, it occurred to me that nothing was stopping me from writing what I wanted. Right now. I can’t even explain how novel this idea still feels to me. Perhaps I made the assumption that I had to write certain things before grad school to prove I was worthy of graduate education. And during grad school, I often felt the same way. The dissertation is such a peculiar project, and I suspect it is the practice of writing the dissertation that will be a more useful tool in any future writing — more so, perhaps, than the contents of the dissertation itself. I have more to say on this, but I’ll leave that for another post.

Permission granted.

What I’m getting at is that I have now given myself permission to devote time to write. I have legitimized it for myself. I have something to say, and I am going to say it. I am going to write articles and submit them for publication. I am going to simultaneously work on a book manuscript for publication. This is what I am going to be doing.

Further, I have decided that I am going to follow a writing schedule — three days a week, 2 hours a day. This is similar to what I did for the dissertation, and it’s very effective. What’s more, it makes me feel productive, something I find I must feel in order to be satisfied with my life. Probably more on that in a later post, too.

I already completed the first week of this commitment. And I feel fantastic. Accomplished. My mind feels active. I am doing something for me. Ahhhhh.

Want to know a little secret? It’s surreptitious writing, at work. I know. Scandalous. I am writing on the government’s dime. More about that later, too, once I’ve thought it through more. I think Michel de Certeau might have something to say about it, though.

Tactics and subversion, yeah baby!

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