Twelve Days Later

I turned around and realized that it has been 12 days since I have last written a blog. Twelve days. And it is not that I completely forgot that I had a blog, it was a combination of a few things. One I had no idea what to blog about because my mind was elsewhere. Two I have had no mental capacity to write anything in the evenings or in the mornings on my way to work because again I was organizing my work day in my head and also desperately trying to be present during my commutes and not lost in my phone. Finally, twelve days passed because the weather has been rather unpleasant lately and I find it difficult to resist the temptation of warm snuggly blanket when I get home, instead of not so warm, not so snuggly desk with a view of more snow and ice. 

                I have also not been reading as much as usual because book four of 2019 is a novel and I have discovered that I cannot read novels as quickly as I can read non-fiction any longer. Maybe it’s because it’s important to pay attention to the narrative; maybe it’s because I have trained my brain to read non-fiction much more post-doctoral degree so now going back to characters and stories is more difficult. It’s a great novel, I just haven’t finished it yet (maybe tomorrow).

                Everything seems to be running a bit slower than usual and I think it’s important that I acknowledge that. This week my commute made me really confront that with weather delays.  I am taking time to think through concepts and emotions. Today as I was writing an academic something I tried to take time to work through the tactile and historical residue that it brought up. Twelve days is actually a long time to not do something and it also shows how much writing is something that needs to be attached to a routine for me or it just does not happen. I have been carrying 20 pages of a manuscript in my bag for 22 days now and I have looked at it exactly 0 times. It’s on the “to do” list. It’s actually been on the “to finish” list since the 14^th but I think it will be a while yet (maybe next weekend).

                A new month is almost upon us and maybe February will be better for checking off my writing “to do’s” and get out from snuggly blankets, if only for 30 or 45 minutes. It is also important to recognize personal potholes and avoidance tactics. Taking time to realize why you are or are not doing something is part of the process of creating a strategy to do it. Twelve days later, there’s still 2 things on my to do’s from twelve days previous, and that’s okay. I mean it does not feel okay to me, but I know it is okay in the grand scheme of things and I have to learn to accept that on a deeper level.

                What is of value to me is what should be prioritized and the moment of truth paste for me today was when I realized that the reason why I was doing something was because that is what is expected of academics, not because that is what I really valued.  Maybe more on that later as I work through this but suffice to say for now that this whole teaching as devalued, research as valued divide is a ghost that haunts and it something I don’t agree with at all.  Teaching and research are not an either /or, it’s not an if /then, it’s a yes/and… and golly gee what sort of groundswell will it take to make that the norm instead of the exception?