Words’ End

You’ll notice I’m skipping the eighth prompt. Yeah, that one was a tad too narcissistic for me.

(I’m participating in Reverb 10. You can, too!)

What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.

Three years ago, then-five-year-old Eleanor asked Mark if she could please please PLEASE go to Burning Man. He said something to the effect of, not until you can take care of yourself in the desert; not now, for sure. And she said, we should have Burning Man right here, in our backyard! Thus, BackYard Burning Man was born.

This past summer was BYBM’s third year, and it was soul-warming, all day. Mark and Eleanor, graciously hosting out-of-towners, worked at their place all day. In the afternoon, Rosa and I joined them to do what we do best: help with food (and, secondarily, the rest of the prep). Colorful streamers everywhere; a couple of open tents with gorgeous brightly-colored curtains; crafts for kids and grownups. Beer and big-girl drinks in the coolers; a pot luck of tasty foods; the grill going. My funky food contribution this year were little chocolate cakes made in scooped-out orange shells, wrapped in foil, “baked” on the grill. Campfire cakes, they’re called. Wicked fun! Try it—but do use decent ingredients. We had gluten free chocolate cake mixes and quail eggs, to accommodate some friends who don’t do gluten or chicken eggs, and it came out phenomenal.

A brief aside for Bostonians north of the river: Seabra supermarket in Somerville reliably has good, cheap quail eggs. And a bunch of Latin American foods that make it one of my favorite groceries around here.

Yeah, this isn’t really Burning Man. It’s not even Firefly. There’s a gas grill and modern plumbing. At the last two, there’s been a bouncy castle. (I had no idea how easy it was to rent one!) Really, it’s a mid-summer party. But it’s not just that. For one thing, it was conceived and executed (with help from her dad and friends) by a kid who gets pretty creative with it, I’ll tell ya. There must’ve been two dozen or more children there over the course of the day, and activities involving making things. There was hooping and juggling and belly dancing. In the evening, when most everyone had left, MartinH brought out his guitar and we sang and sang, The Beatles and Paul Simon and I don’t even remember what else. Fairy lights everywhere.

That’s magic I love.

(I’m participating in Reverb 10. You can, too!)

Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

To my great surprise, I discovered community in my field.

When I went to my first digital humanities conference in 2001, back when it had the unwieldy name ACH-ALLC, I thought I’d discovered community. Perfect strangers sought you out and asked you about your work. Then you asked them about theirs, and next thing you knew, you were spending the many coffee breaks and every evening chatting about text encoding and digital map work and dogs and cooking. Seasoned scholars mentored us whipper-snappers, first informally for several academic generations, then formally through mentoring programs. There’s a vibrant DH presence on Twitter and in the blogosphere.

I’ve felt part of a community ever since then. Even so, work was quite lonely sometimes. Writing the dissertation is inherently lonely. And between graduation and about a year ago, my immediate vicinity was pretty low on DH.

Within the last year, things have shifted. My own horizons expanded: I’m finally comfortable with my place in the digital library world, insofar as anyone with no library degree can be. Digital humanists on Twitter have prompted me to write and think about new DH topics. I disovered DHSI for myself, and met even more brilliant people, among them Julie.

Can hardly wait to start the new job. (On Monday!) The pragmatic (if not explicit) mandate to build community is practically in the job description. And next year, more of the same, please.

And more of my personal community! Which I’d write about here, but it’s late, and I didn’t discover it this year. No, it’s been around for a long time, for me. The whole DH thing, though… still startles me at the end of the year. It’s been a long year, fundamentally a good one! So yes, more of the same, please.

A day late, and what of it?

(I’m participating in Reverb 10. You can, too!)

What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

The last thing I made was dinner for twenty.

I used to self-identify as a person who makes decent-to-great food and feeds it to her friends and loved ones. My most magical, quietly vibrant self manifests in the kitchen.

During and following my excruciatingly protracted divorce, cooking became difficult. Everything was difficult, but cooking was the most surprising—and the most frustrating. I had lost the life that had been there just a moment ago, and with it my most reliable (up to that point) inanimate tool for connecting with the world.

Been getting back to it slowly, lurching a bit back and forth. Still, I go through dry spells. A recent one annoyed me so much that I immediately made plans to cook dinner for twenty.

Honestly, I wish I could afford to do this more often. It was SO MUCH FUN. I spent several days shopping (in like five different places), and a full evening and following day cooking. It was a mezze sort of evening — I made two different bean dips, and a beet something-or-other, and lamb kabobs served as individual meat pieces, and there had to have been something with eggplant. I don’t even remember what else. (Were you there? What did you eat?)

What I took away from it was the laughter and warmth. They did that, some people I love came over and filled the place with light, and all I had to do was have a good time in the kitchen. Everybody wins.

As for something I’d like to make if I only had (made) the time… I’d love to do cross-stitch again. Something gorgeous and symbolic and pagan and shaded.

(Oh! A deviled duck egg salad! As good as deviled eggs, but salad.)

(I’m participating in Reverb 10. You can, too!)

What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

Early in the year I let go of an important inhibition in a major way, because I encountered a safe space in which to do so. I was rewarded with getting to know some wonderful, complex people. Courage is heady.

That nicely set the tone for the rest of the year. Some big conversations happened, and big decisions were made, together with other people—from my mom to my housemates to Mark. We all spoke courage, we all listened, we’re all emerging on the other side of conversations.

Yeah, I’m phoning this one in. The world doesn’t get to hear any more about what I’ve let go. Some of it is too painful to discuss at length; some is just no longer part of me. Whichever option it is, I’m going to sleep.

(I’m participating in Reverb 10. You can, too!)

How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

For the most part, like I do every year. I hung out with children, looked up at the night sky, learned new things, took different walking paths, watched for patterns. Observed people go about their lives, colliding. I did things to expand my mind, man: nothing like an altered consciousness after a couple of hours’ silent sitting to make you look around anew.

This year, I also floated in a clear turquoise and looked up at the brightly lit sky. Months later, I wandered around the streets of San Francisco, startled to be feeling so at home.

(I’m participating in Reverb 10. You can, too!)

Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

Here’s one I don’t mind sharing.

My sister-in-law Jo Ann and I are driving. We’ve been in Quebec with the rest of the family for several days now, and it… hasn’t been easy. We escaped into twilit Quebec City, saw a random long bridge and took it, and discovered for ourselves Île d’Orléans. It’s every bit as pastoral as travel books say. It’s 34x8km, and there’s a main road going all around it. We drive all around it.

Weather is perfect. Probably about 20 degrees Celsius, a slight breeze. We are driving slowly with the windows open. It’s quiet enough that we can hear the crickets even as the car is moving. Lights here and there, close together enough to illuminate most of the space, but far apart enough that each shines brightly in the dark. Water is all around us, so everything smells like a river; the air is damp but soft and light. Jo and I are quiet, a lull between fits of animated conversation. Every once in a while we pass an inn or a restaurant, and in them white noise of conversations that dissipates as we leave the crowds behind. They’re like wind in tall trees.

It’s bright slate streaked with a pale pale blue, with accents of fading pink and orange and red. Everything is silhouetted.

(I’m participating in Reverb 10. You can, too!)

Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

I was at a loss as to how to start answering that, because I don’t think of myself primarily, or even in second place, as a writer. But then a friend reminded me to substitute my own creative mode for writing. Right.

So, here’s what I do every day that prevents me from making new things, whether they be food or web pages or, er, “work” (generating new content as part of my job, but I am lucky enough to not separate “work” from “life”): I escape into others’ stories.

At home, I watch TV. To my occasional chagrin, Hulu and Netflix and YouTube all carry content with good storylines, and I’m a sucker for those. I watch things like Doctor Who and House and Fringe. And Glee, mostly because choir (including show choir, but 30-150 of us instead of a dozen) was my favorite part of the high school experience. And movies, sometimes. These stories are so wholly unconnected to most of the rest of my life that I just tune it all out. The constant noise in my head stops for those fifty minutes. I also watch brain candy, like medical dramas and (until I lost interest, because the stories are too formulaic) Bones. That’s to escape in another way.

Books have good stories too, but I tend to read while commuting. Ever since I became multilingual, first learning English and then almost immediately throwing myself into Italian, reading is a more conscious act than I’d like. Skimming is difficult; most reading processes take a lot more time than they did when I was eleven. Losing myself in a book is hard, so I don’t use them to escape so much as practice diving again and again.

Could I eliminate these compelling distractions? Of course. Here’s the thing, though: I don’t want to eliminate them. Sure, they can siren-sing me into oblivion. And sure, I’m not creating as much as I’d like. But these escapes give me two important tools. One is inspiration; input is at the core of everything. The other is a place and time to let things percolate subconsciously—a restful night’s sleep for creativity. So it’s a matter of finding balance. Balance is difficult for me to find, let alone sustain. The only way I’ve found to deal with this is iteration, practice, which is hard! It’s hard in itself, and it’s also hard because it involves shedding deeply ingrained assumptions of what activities constitute wasting time and, if I’m not careful, carry a dose of guilt (an unproductive time and energy sink).

At work, I read a lot—and sometimes catch myself at reading just for the story, failing to notice when an article (or blog post, or tweet) might lead me to new thoughts and new work. Escaping into stories that way, just to find out what people are doing without reflecting on how it ties into my own work, is no more damaging than escaping into television—but it is more wasteful. So at work, I work on my reading skills and on remembering that all those authors I read are writing about things directly relevant to what I do. Again, practice; but this time, instead of balance, the goal is increased mindfulness.

(I’m participating in Reverb 10. You can, too!)

One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

Grounding.

I feel solid, personally—about time, I tell ya. It’s been a long three years since my separation from my life partner, and that’s ceasing to define me.

I’ve sunk my roots into Boston even further. Home feels like home. People feel like my people. Everything is always in transition, but many days this year I’ve been struck by how living feels. It feels like it did when I was a kid: sometimes, I’m not distracted by whatever’s in my head. Time goes more slowly. My filters aren’t filtering out quite so much of the world. I notice more little things—not beautiful little things, but ordinary ones. The sounds of street traffic, out there, all the time. The shuffle of the old lady passing by my window. People’s movement through Davis Square, in aggregate.

A ton of new knowledge acquired. This grounds me in my profession. Speaking of which: I have a new job. It’s still at BU, and starts in a couple of weeks, at which point I’ll write more about it. The job is also grounding: it will draw much more fully on my skillset, and further solidifies my geographic position.

I keep wanting to write something about Mark, and how our relationship relates to Word of the Year for me—it does in a cardinal, astounding way. But I haven’t yet figured out (again, post-divorce) how much I want to write about my personal life involving other people. So, redacted.

Taking up weight lifting again has helped my body feel more sound. Pun intended!

So: compared to this time last year, much better grounded.

Next year could have so many defining words that would thrill me. One possibility I wouldn’t mind: joy.

Some friends of mine are using today as an occasion for making lists of 77 things that… well, you get the idea.

I’m in Sleepy Hollow again, visiting my brother and family (cast of characters, again: Zhenya = brother; Jo Ann = sister-in-law; Tesher = nephew; right now also Jo’s mom Linda, who lives in Maine). Tesher and I stayed up super extra late to make this list.

I gotta say: the things below are stuff external to us. But he’s definitely one of MY 77 things.

(more…)

Recently, Martha Nell Smith was awarded the Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award by the University of Maryland, where she teaches. At the second of the above links you’ll find a video of her lecture, given on the occasion of this award, “The Humanities Are Not a Luxury.” In the wake of SUNY Albany’s astonishing decision to cut some key programs—French, classics, Russian, Italian and theatre—Smith talks with humor and a stable sort of passion about the humanities as an essential, indispensable part of what we do and are. Here are some of the things that she says:

There is no frigate, no bus, no plane, no space ship, no car, no train—none of these is like a book, like a song, like an operatic voice, like a painting, like a sculpture, like a drama. To help us imagine other lands and cultures, to help us cultivate that kind of compassion and empathy required for democracy, for practicing equality as a fundamental value, instead of the more primitive ‘better than’.

And also:

We should remind our administrators that the kind of education that enabled broad access to highest quality instruction and research, and made these United States a world leader—that kind of education can never be a gated community. And it must be worldly, reaching beyond any nation-state. Healthy, too, are reminders that business management is really not the best metaphor for knowledge workers. As was noted in a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, a better metaphor for knowledge workers is that of gardener. We work in fields. We cultivate.

What I’ve been pointing out is that unless you’re at home in the metaphor, unless you have had your proper poetical education in the metaphor, you are not safe anywhere. Because you are not at ease with figurative values. You don’t know the metaphor and its strength, and its weakness. You don’t know how far you may expect to ride it, and when it may break down with you. You are not safe in science, and you are not safe in history, unless you are at home with the metaphor.

Smith rejects the rhetoric of a crisis in the humanities, a phrase often uttered. For more on the state of the humanities, see Stanley Fish’s recent NYTimes opinion pieces: “The Crisis of the Humanities Officially Arrives” and its sequel, “Crisis of the Humanities II.” I find it more than a little odd that not once does Fish mention digital endeavors of any kind, but can’t say I’m surprised. He didn’t mention them two years ago when asking whether the humanities would save us, either. I don’t subscribe to Fish’s opinions, but the articles and comments on them are thought provoking. Martha Nell Smith’s lecture, on the other hand, I heartily endorse. It’s well worth the hour and ten minutes it’ll take to watch the video.