Lately, there’s been a lot of intersection between the mothering part of my identity and the academic part of my identity, which I suppose is normal, given that both are central to my core identity, and given that I’m constantly seeking “balance” in ways that allow me to be productive, proactive, and proud of honoring the core of who I really am.
If you follow this blog, last week, I wrote about the negotiation of my academic travels while away from my breastfeeding child. If you follow my “mom blog,” yesterday, I wrote about having a morning where everything seemed out of balance, hurried, and just plain frustrating.
But, today, I’m going to write about something that I realized I don’t write about very often: the joy and privilege of a daily writing practice. I know this isn’t a joy or a privilege for everyone, and if you’ve read this blog over its 3.5 year existence, you’ll know it really doesn’t occur for me as a privilege or joy all the time, but since today, it does, I want to give that some space.
When I was in elementary school, I used to spend hours writing. I loved writing young adult fiction modeled after the books I would read from Scholastic book club orders or the library. As I grew older, I began writing angsty teenage poetry. And, after my mother passed away in high school, I kept a journal regularly, writing each day for the year after the died, as a lifeline for myself in very troubling times. I was a strong creative writer; I needed personal writing to express thoughts that I was too reluctant to share with the world; and I was adept at academic writing. In so many ways, I loved writing.
As I progressed in my academic and scholarly pathways, my writing became increasingly something to be judged. My love for writing began to wain as it became performative rather than personal. Even now, as I blog, I consider the public nature of my writing, and how, although I value an audience for my thoughts and think it important to publicly and privately engage in the roles that are central to who I am, I craft the way I write carefully. I think about how it will be judged and by extension, I will be judged, and it worries me because no one likes to be judged. Unfortunately, that’s often how I approach the writing I do, as a space of vulnerability and fearing critique and judgment.
It’s only recently that I’ve had a professional breakthrough in terms of writing, thanks to a recent seminar I completed through the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity. The program focuses on thriving in the academy and through my awesome interactions in a faculty small group, as well as the 12 tenets of the program, including daily academic writing, I’ve moved beyond a notion that writing is a Herculean task to a sense of irritation when writing isn’t the first thing on my daily professional calendar. It’s been quite transformational in relation to power and productivity in my academic work. But, it hasn’t engendered feelings of love for my writing.
Today, however, I felt the spark of my love for writing rekindled as I drove my son to school. Unlike yesterday’s ill-fated car ride, today, we talked about our favorite types of fungi (yes, mushrooms) and other favorite foods, about how much he had taken to heart the advice I had given him yesterday, and about what a good day it would be for the both of us. That reminded me of my blog from yesterday. And that reminded me of why I love writing.
Writing has the power to remind us of transformation, from day to day, week to week, year to year. It has the power to capture moments in vivid detail and authentic pain and then allow us to reflect upon those moments in ways that allow us to move forward, to move through, and to move beyond. Writing reminds us that, yes, sometimes things get bad, and we have mornings where we can’t, but that other times, things get better, and we have mornings where the sun is shining beautifully (but it’s not unbearably hot) and we get to write after a wonderful walk across campus listening to an insightful audiobook. Writing, and public writing especially, reminds us that we are not alone in our sorrow or our joy, our defeats or our accomplishments. Writing connects people. And daily writing connects people daily.
Which is why, today I’m sharing my joy, to remind myself that the sun will come up tomorrow somewhere and someday after days when my judgment and my perspectives are clouded.