Reverb 11: On Last Year and Next

Reverb 11: Day 11: Health and Wellness

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:16:00 -0500

What did you do in 2011 to improve your overall health/fitness/wellness? What unhealthy habits would you like to break in the new year? With what healthy habits would you replace them?

This was a really good year for me in terms of health and wellness, a turnaround sparked largely by the health issues I dealt with in 2010, which was a horrendous year for me in almost every way.

#1 - I started going to therapy to learn how to deal with my stress and emotions in a more positive way. I think that getting back in touch with my body and how emotions manifest there, and learning concrete ways of dealing with that energy was huge for me in terms of stress. I’m still not all the way there, but I feel a lot better at dealing with feeling really upset and distressed, now that I think of it as physical energy rather than ‘truth’.

#2 - I began going to physical therapy to address the postural issues I’ve worried about for years. Again, I’m not all the way there, and I’m beginning to think that I won’t be even by the time I end PT at the end of next month. But I have the exercises to do, and I feel that I can begin PT and get good results once I am living somewhere else. I can feel that I am standing straighter and I know that my shoulders have come way down. I’m getting there!

#3 - My car broke down, which made me very sad. But then I bought a bright orange bike, which made me very happy! And biking everywhere, though sometimes a pain in the ass, undoubtedly has brought more exercise, more light, and more energy into my life. Plus it keeps me in touch with my body. Win.

#4 - I have been taking fish oil, vitamin D, and a multivitamin for the past six months, and I honestly think it’s made a big difference in terms of how I feel. The Vitamin D, especially. I think I’m just genetically low in it.

#5 - Getting a CSA box of vegetables plus dairy has been incredible, especially as it was so heavily subsidized by my university. I have really enjoyed cooking local and seasonal vegetables, even as I sometimes miss things like avocados and strawberries.

#6 - Finally, I made the decision to leave a stressful job and go to a shack in the tropics for a while. That oughtta count for something :-)

EDIT: Oops! I forgot to add what bad habits I’d like to break, and what healthy habits I’d like to add.

I’m more or less happy with what I’m doing, but occasionally I stay up really late. I’d like to start instituting a no computers after 9pm rule (unless it’s absolutely necessary for a deadline the next day), and I’d like to replace it with socializing and/or watching movies/reading books/listening to music instead. Also, I am going to start running in the mornings. That’s it.

Reverb 11: Day 10: Lesson Learned

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 19:02:00 -0500

What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?

Hmmm. That’s tough. Let’s start with a quick 10 things I learned about myself this year.

1. I have desires. And I’m really uncomfortable acknowledging them, let alone sharing them.

2. Expressing my desires doesn’t always scare people off – it can actually help me get what I’m after.

3. I often base my life on how people will react to me, and try to make myself happy based on their approval of me, rather than basing my life on the happiness of actually being myself and going after what it is I want. I’d like to change this.

4. Travel, even thinking and talking about it, nourishes me. Without adventure I am spiritually starved.

5. Amazingly, there are people out there that find me loveable. And it’s sad that I find that amazing.

6. A morning routine really stabilizes me. And it needs to be as simple as possible.

7. I need my body, heart, and mind to be in balance. Paying attention to all three daily is important to me. Bike riding has been hugely helpful. Feeling my feelings in my body has been hugely helpful.

8. My emotions are combinations of thoughts (which move the emotions forward) and physical sensation. Focusing my awareness on the physical energy as it peaks and then passes, and gently helping it to dissipate up or down, is way more effective than trying to ride the monkey-mind-mobile.

9. That I love being with someone who is non-judgmental – about me, about other people. Thank you, H.

10. That being brave and going for what feels right but scary, is a thousand times more rewarding than trudging along the expected path.

Which of these was the best thing I learned about myself this year? Hmmm. They are all pretty good, actually. This was a big year for me to grow. I’m grateful for that.

But I’m going to choose being honest about my desires and what feels right, communicating them honestly, and going after them. Because I think that is the thing that has held me back the most.* My therapist has told me that I am extremely talented at worrying about how others will react to my thoughts and actions, and modifying my life to make it comfortable for them. I’d like to change that, and I know it means I will have to deal with some other people’s messy feelings sometimes.

How will I apply this lesson going forward?

When faced with a decision, I will think about what I am after and why. Am I being true to what I really want? To who I really am? Am I being honest with other people? With myself? Do I feel scared? Is it an excited, oh-my-god fear, or a whoa-that-doesn’t-feel-right fear?

This is as true for career stuff and having-a-baby stuff as it is for relationships, I think.

* Of course, many of these things are interrelated. For instance, one of my fears about expressing my desires is that I am making myself vulnerable, and that I will just feel too sad if things don’t work out, especially if I am rejected in my desire. Working to dissipate my emotions helps with this. And of course, expressing my desires means I am not being a pissy codependent, and is rather impossible if I’m not in tune with my physical and emotional selves. Etcetera.

Reverb 11: Day 9: Travel

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:47:00 -0500

How did you travel in 2011? How and/or where would you like to travel next year?

Oh, this is a fun one!

In 2011, I traveled – really traveled – for the first time in several years, since my trip to Bali in, I think, 2004. There is something so comforting about putting on the old backpack and moneybelt, stripping my possessions down to just a few things, and setting off for parts unknown. In a weird twist, it feels to me like coming home.

I was a bit lonely. I think this has changed – part of me would like to travel with someone else now. (H., are you listening? Oh, that’s right, this is anonymous!) But I felt really ripped away from Luang Prabang and from Laos in general – I did not feel like I was ready to leave, and landing in Hong Kong, busy and commercial as it is, was especially too much. It felt like a violence to myself. I know that sounds like an exaggeration.

So: my travel this year is to go back to Southeast Asia, to spend some time relaxing in a beach hut until I get bored with it, to do a meditation retreat in the forest, and to go back to Laos (and possibly Cambodia and Myanmar?) until I feel it’s time to come home. It sounds as if I could stay at this Nomad guesthouse on a small island off Cambodia for free in exchange for doing some art for them. I think that could be a really good place to start (though, actually, I’d like to start somewhere where I don’t have to work at all for a bit!)

Of course, if Brazil calls, that could completely change things. But though I would love to go to South America, right now it doesn’t feel like it’s calling me. And unless H. and I decided to really make a go of it (and really, I don’t see that happening within the next several months – I don’t want to be a rebound), I am hesitant to travel there just for her. Although: we will see how strong I am if asked. I think I will say no.

Then, there’s my (very different) travel to the Czech Republic, if I decide to go the egg donor route. If I do that, I really want to take a little time there, and write some lullabies for my child. I really like that idea. Perhaps I could do the WWOOF thing there!

At any rate, it feels good to be nourishing my need for travel again.

Reverb 11: Day 8: Five Minutes

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:32:00 -0500

Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2011 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2011.

- Waking to gongs and drums and novice monks walking barefoot collecting alms, in Laos

- Wandering the temple ruins in Champasak, Laos; a beautiful Buddha revealing itself surprisingly when I reached the top.

- Listening to the sounds of insects and pentatonic cowbells in southern Laos. Pure magic.

- Playing with the slowed-down sounds of Laos in my laptop piece, especially the magical sound of the slowed down crickets and cowbells.

- Being thanked by J., N., and J. for being a wonderful teacher.

- H. braving no sleep to come to my show, wait around to clean up the reception with me, then have an amazing conversation with me late into the night – our first time hanging out alone.

- Road tripping at the end of school, listening to Yo La Tengo and Stereolab.

- H. telling me, under the stars, “You can be honest with me.”

- Eating the most amazing chocolate cake on a lark with H. Everything feeling so easy and effortless.

- My nephew P. running hard and breathlessly when I was leaving town to give me an enormous, heartfelt hug. He was afraid he had missed me.

- Watching early Pink Panther cartoons with P.

- Staying with my sorrow when H. seemed to have decided to move to Chicago with the GF, and feeling the tender, wild beauty within myself.

- Playing in the waves, diving in and out of them, at the end of summer.

- My student J., who put her all into every artwork and critique.

- Brushing hands with H. while making caramel

- A long hug with H. after she told me her fears about her mom.

- Playing with the postcard photographs in Lightroom

- My mom telling me she had saved up $5000 to help me with trying to have a child.

- Feeling centered and relaxed and good, if a bit scared, about following my heart and leaving town to travel and figure out where I will live next and raise my kid.

- H. saying, when I told her about the caves in Crete, “I want to go. Let’s go.”

- H. telling me, when I worried our three hour conversation about her possible breakup and my current fears was too much: “It was good that we talked. We had a lot to talk about.” And emailing me a few days later that my email made her night.

I’m a little uncomfortable about how many of these memories involve H. It scares me to think that she may not feel as strongly as I do. At the same time, she is the most significant thing to happen to my life in a long time, whether or not it becomes something. It is so enormously nourishing to feel like someone else truly cares about me. It is such a huge gift. Thank you, H.

Reverb 11: Day 7: Beyond Avoidance

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:19:37 -0500

What should you have done this year but didn’t because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?)

Laparoscopic surgery to remove my endometrioma and fibroids. So that I can move forward with having a child.

I have been through so much conflicted advice and distrust of doctors related to this, so it’s not surprising that I haven’t had the surgery. Though in retrospect, I wish I hadn’t cancelled the surgery this summer. I think I’ve just had really back luck with doctors in this regard. And it’s still hard to figure out; especially with my trip coming up – would it be better to just wait till I return from my trip, perhaps find a doctor in San Francisco and have the surgery there? Or do it in January (if I even can?) with Dr. D.? Or do it in February after I have leave town, but before I travel?

What I would love is for a doctor to walk me through the surgery who will also walk me through the egg donor abroad process. I don’t know if that’s too much to ask. But it sure would be nice. I have a feeling that RMA might be that place. But if I could just trust it again, I think perhaps W&I might be easiest. But who could help me recover? Oy. This is why I haven’t had the surgery yet. If H. decided to come live in my apartment, it would definitely work. Because she would totally take care of me. But I think she is going to stay where she is. And maybe she should.

So my question: how to move forward on this? Because I think my paralysis is because of not knowing the answers to these questions. What do I actually need to achieve this and get beyond it?

(1) A good surgeon

(2) Who can do the surgery close to someone who will take care me during recovery

(3) Who is willing to walk me through the steps

(4) Who I trust to bill me for as little fertility-wise as possible.

I need answers to these questions. I can ask on the PVED boards, the SMC list, and other fertility forums. In particular, I need to clarify my #4 – what exactly ARE the steps that would be needed, and how would I be billed? Those are really important questions for me to deal with.

And I promise to deal with them. Calmly, but in good order.

Reverb 11: Day 6: 11 Things

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:05:00 -0500

[image by broterham]

What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2012? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?

1. Acting to earn others’ approval.

2. Scattered mornings or evenings.

3. Fear of my own desires.

4. Lack of money.

5. Isolation.

6. Self-deprecation.

7. The ‘serious artist’ persona.

8. Looking ragged.

9. Ten extra pounds and a belly.

10. Living as if I’m in my twenties.

11. Eating fish.

———————————————————————————————————

I think the best way to eliminate something is to substitute it with something else, and to make that a habit. So one idea is to make each of these things a habit for one month. What would those substitutions look like?

1. Acting to earn others’ approval —> Listening to what is right for me and doing it.

2. Scattered mornings or evenings —> Morning/evening routine.

3. Fear of my own desires —> Owning and acting on my desires even if scared or embarrassed.

4. Lack of money —> Prioritizing earning money.

5. Isolation —> Connecting with people.

6. Self-deprecation —> Self-gratitude, and accepting compliments.

7. The ‘serious artist’ persona —> Being myself.

8. Looking ragged —> Making an effort to look nice.

9. Ten extra pounds and a belly —> Exercising every day, no dairy.

10. Living as if I’m in my twenties —> Thinking of myself as an adult.

11. Eating fish —> Having plenty of beans and tempeh in the house.

———————————————————————————————————

How will getting rid of these 11 things change my life?

I will live more authentically as my own person. I will feel more centered and relaxed and organized. I will treat myself with more respect. I will feel connected and loved. I will feel healthier and more energetic and sexier. I will feel more like a mom-to-be. I will enjoy living in peace with the aniiiimals.

Reverb 11: Day 5: The Movie

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:59:00 -0500

If a film were made about ONE thing that happened to you in 2011, what would the film be called? Describe the plot/story.

This is embarrassing. But true. I see a kind of sappy super-8-style film of the courtship of H. and B., composed primarily of montages of our faces laughing on Skype interspersed with spry music video clips of the two of us road tripping, carrying boxes, and so forth. The story relates how two people meet unexpectedly, keep bumping into one another, obsessively fill one another in on funny things happening in their life, then realize it’s kismet. It ends with the heroines walking barefoot through the grass holding hands. I hope.

Reverb 11: Day 4: Healing

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 13:35:00 -0500

[image by pope saint victor]

What healed you this year? Was it a sudden, or drip by drip, evolution? How would you like to be healed in 2012?

The six most healing words I know are: “You can be honest with me.”

These words were spoken by a friend several months ago, sitting off in the corner of a backyard at a party, gazing up the stars. She had just pointed out a constellation. I didn’t really see it, but I just murmured, Oh yeah, nice. Then silence. I don’t actually see it, I said. She looked at me with surprise and warmth, and then said those six words. You can be honest with me. And beneath that: I will be your friend whatever your truth is. Powerful words. I’ve revisited that moment several times. I am trying to put that energy out to my own friends, and I am trying to put that energy out to myself. I can love myself and my friends in our current truth.

This writing about healing comes at an opportune time. Though over the past month I’ve felt more and more secure about my decision, the last few days have really rocked my emotional boat. I woke up inexplicably sobbing at three in the morning a couple of nights ago, and I felt utterly alone and wretched, and kept going over a work situation in which I have felt rejected and betrayed. I made the mistake of talking with a sometimes cold and critical ‘friend’ this week, whose response to my life changes was monosyllabic responses, a stony silence, and a quick retreat off the phone. When I reached out to another good friend to let her know I’d had this upsetting experience, I didn’t hear a word back. The fear and sorrow this week has been strong enough that I wonder whether I’ve been healed at all this year – but then I see how I have learned to respond to my emotions.

This year I’ve spent a lot of time working with a therapist to learn to feel my feelings in my body, and to deal with their energy in productive ways instead of turning away. Emotions are a combination of two things: actual bodily experience, and the thoughts which perpetuate the whirlwind of emotion. [I learned that from this wonderful book.] I’ve always been super sensitive to any perceived criticism, and embarrassingly enough, I cry at the drop of a hat. It felt like a magic trick the first time I was able to simply concentrate on where the energy of my emotion lay in my body (often in my throat or my heart), and to move the energy in the direction it wanted to go to dissipate it. It sounds super New Agey. But try it! Honestly, it feels like a skill that we all should have learned in the fourth grade (and perhaps others did!), but it is new to me. And it works. Much, much better than whirling about in my homegrown hurricane of thoughts does.

It’s not a magic pill, of course. We need to be with our emotions as they come up, tend them as we would tend a child, and say those six magic words to them. They are not always ready to dissipate immediately. And that’s okay. They are messages: this makes me feel good. Or: something is not right in my life. Or: wow, this totally sucks. Or: talking with this person makes me feel bad about myself. The messages can be dealt with, but first we must be with ourselves as we would be with a good friend or a child we cared about.

Home is not where you live, but where they understand you. That understanding cannot come about without care. In 2012 I would like to continue this healing process, by particularly focusing on being with and making friends with people who feel like home.

Reverb 11: Day 3: Ambition vs Intention

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 12:03:00 -0500

[Image by Duo de Hale]

What are your ambitions? What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to/detracts from your ambitions? Can you eliminate it?

I am uneasy with the word ambition. To me, it connotes aggression, capitalism and a lack of concern for others. So I looked up some synonyms for ambition. (I must admit, I’m feeling a bit lazy, so I didn’t go far; just to Word’s built-in dictionary). Here are the results:

Ambition: goal, aim, objective, aspiration, dream, hope, desire, purpose, drive, determination.

In essence, all of these words carry the idea that you want something that you don’t have yet. This is a hot topic in Buddhism, because of course the idea is that everything is already perfect, if you can just free yourself from delusion. And yet, all Mahayana Buddhists hold the aspiration that all sentient beings obtain liberation from delusion. How can you accept the perfection of what is, but have plans for the future? Clearly, it happens. You have only to look at the administrative schedule of Thich Nat Hanh or the Dalai Lama to know that they are not just wandering out there in la-la land. The absolute and relative worlds coexist. Just because you have gotten a glimpse of the perfection of the universe doesn’t mean that you can’t catch a cold, that you don’t need to remember to pick up the milk on your way home, that you don’t have to get through a to-do list a mile long when you’d rather just be hanging out in the park.

I think rather than set goals for 2012, I’d like to set intentions. Intentions may lead to the desired result, or they may lead me somewhere else – but I can more or less control my intentions. I can’t control results.

One intention: to make my creative process an integrated part of my life. Doing this exercise daily is part of that.

Another: to spend my time working on interesting projects, to write thoughtful letters to the people whose work I love, to hang out with people who I think are leading awesome lives. I hope this will lead to work I love, but I can’t guarantee that. I can, however, take the actions.

Finally: my most important intention is to create family. To take steps to have a child, to set myself up in a loving, warm, and funny family of friends, and to take care of the people I love.

So: my three intentions: integrate my creativity, work on what and with whom I find most engaging, and create a loving family. Every day I can take steps to do this.

The next part of the story: what’s getting in the way?

I have real problems with commitment. I over-commit to the unimportant, while simultaneously fearing commitment that requires real vulnerability. Anything that does not actively contribute to my intentions is getting in the way. Here are a few of the things I’d like to say no to this year:

- Organizational emails. These have been the bane of my existence the last few weeks. I’d prefer to call one meeting, go over everything, and be done with it.

- Big creative projects overlapping one another (and that includes teaching). It’s really important for my sanity that I only work on one big project at a time. That leaves me room to make creativity an integrated process whether or not there is a deadline.

- Email that doesn’t directly move me forward on these intentions. Not only the emails I automatically delete, but the emails I keep meaning to read, the emails I feel I ‘should’ read but don’t really want to, the emails that make me feel overwhelmed. I do not wish to die an old woman trying to get to the bottom of my inbox. That’s pathetic.

So: intention, instead of ambition. Integrated creativity, work on what I love, make a family. Drop email, don’t overlap big projects, and meet with people one on one when possible.

Easy peasy.

Reverb 11: Day 2: Let Go

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 11:51:00 -0500

[Image by HoopTrekTravel]

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

The image above is from Kauai’s Kalalau Trail – a trail I have hiked twice, by myself, that goes along the Na Pali Coast to the most beautiful beach imaginable, with steps leading to a waterfall for your showering pleasure, abundant banana trees, and said beach, where they filmed South Pacific. It’s incredible. But as you can see above, there are some spots on the trail where it is about a foot wide, on eroded rock, and though you can see beauty and the Pacific in the far distance (below you), you just have to concentrate on taking one step at a time. And when you’re there, you feel like you must be crazy.

I feel like I’m in that place right now. This year I let go of this image I had of myself and of my future – creative acclaim, tenure-track job at a prestigious college – as I grew to realize that it might not actually make me as happy to live that life as I’d thought. That does not mean I’ve fully detached from that dream; there is a thin flap of lonely and very human flesh still connecting me with this particular set of wings, and I may well fly away on them; but I’ve let go of relying on that as an absolute.

This scares me. A lot. And I think that there are jobs out there that could make me happy. But I need to be able to be myself, in all my dimensions, not some version of what I think I should be. I really struck out on the job search last year. I had only one phone interview, with a small but well-known liberal arts college. It was unexpectedly wonderful. Before the interview, instead of cramming what I might say in response to the expected questions, I spent time really centering myself, looking at pictures of myself and friends from our reunion in New Mexico, and I concentrated on just being myself and answering questions as honestly as I could during the interview. It was a wonderful conversation. I didn’t get the job, or even a call back for a campus interview, but I felt really good about the way I had represented myself – as myself.

And this feeling of being absolutely myself, centered and relaxed, is what I am after. I feel only good things can come from this. Once, in an interview with my teacher, Roshi, I asked how I could more authentically live as my self, and she asked me skeptically exactly what this fixed self might be? Couldn’t I be most authentic by being in the moment? Indeed.

My decision to take a sabbatical feels right, and centered and relaxed. But it is still scary as hell. Last night I woke up startled and sobbing in the middle of the night. I had no idea what had triggered it, but I could not stop. I kept thinking of the way I felt betrayed by various people at my current university, and realized that I have never felt like I fit in here, and that it reminds me all too much of not fitting in in so many situations.

I’m adding something to this prompt. What, or whom, would I like to let go of in 2012? First, I would like to let go of the need for approval and permission; I want to start doing things because they feel right in my core.

And perhaps related to this: I want to give up always having to get my way. I would like to allow others – and the universe – to say no to my plans sometimes, and I would like to trust that I may not always know what is right. I want to accept, and bless, the truth of the situation.

So: For 2012 I am letting go of my need to always be liked, and needing to always get my way. That sounds like a hard path – feeling disliked, not getting my way. But perhaps if I can live with intention, if I can stumble with a bit more grace through this world, if I can feel that I am acting in a way true to myself, then what I do will bring a bit more love and happiness to the world. And that’s what I’m after.

What have you let go of, and what have the benefits been?

Reverb 11: Day 1: One Word: Nourish/Blossom

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 08:54:00 -0500

[image by cfmayer]

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?

My word is nourish. This has been a year of really going back to basics for me, of trying to rediscover who it is I am, what I want to do, and giving that seed plenty of nourishment. I feel like the process started more than a year ago, when I suffered through almost three months of bronchitis and asthma, and was forced to stay at home most of the time (only venturing out to teach my three-hour class, which luckily had an enrollment of three; two of them graduate students). After a year of living alone in a new city with a new job and facing some really scary medical issues, it felt oddly good to lie on the couch all day watching old movies (save for the hacking cough which made it impossible for me to walk more than ten feet or talk for more than a few minutes at a time). It’s like I went back down under the earth. Under the covers of the dark. And that was how I ended 2010.

2011 started with a trip to Laos that was regretfully short but SO. AWESOME. It had been several years since I’d thrown on the old backpack to head far away, and I realized immediately how living without travel had been kind of like breathing without oxygen for me. I wanted to stay there forever, but instead I was gone before three weeks were up and off to Hong Kong to do a big installation piece.

I returned from Laos and Hong Kong feeling good and determined to take better care of myself, both physically and mentally. I got a few massages. I met a really great new friend. I worked with some wonderful, engaged students. A lot changed for me – my postdoc ended (and with it, my paycheck), and my car died – and through it, I tried to just keep going and take care of myself as I figured out the next step. I’m still not sure what next year will bring, but the next steps did come – I’ve been teaching at my old university again and also got a big commission for an art project I’m excited about. I bought a juicy orange new bike and have been having a blast riding it around. Now I’m applying to only the academic jobs I think I’d really love, and heading back to Asia to take care of myself and my muse a bit more.

My word for 2012 is blossom: both fruit and flower. I mean, it figures, after all that nourishing. Right? I want persimmons and raspberries, cherry blossoms and rose blossoms and carnivorous green monsters. I want a child, and someone to love. And I want my work to flow through my life like green flows through grass, rather than hurling myself dramatically against the thorn wall of creative deadlines.

On Participating in Reverb 11

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 08:24:00 -0500

Over the past year, I’ve been trying to get back to myself. Graduate school was a fantastic experience for me, but it was also a wildly asymmetrical experience that left parts of me completely ignored while my music and art flourished. For almost a decade.

Last week I decided to quit the adjunct course I was supposed to teach at Prestigious Art School and to go to Southeast Asia instead. I know. Insane. But I will likely never have this chance again, and I’ve never felt more at peace with a decision.

One of the things I’m hoping to do this year is to consistently do the work. Though I have a pretty good track record of being productive, I tend to work in intense bursts that leave me exhausted and gasping for air (and sleep). I’m really interested in changing the pacing of this (though I suspect that my night-owl ways will never completely go away). And I hope that suspending teaching for a while will allow me to build this process into my life.

All of this, to say – I’ve decided to participate in a project called Reverb 11, a month-long series of responses to prompts about this year and next. I am posting anonymously, because while I am privately waffling about my career, I’m not at all sure I want these writings to be Googleable. But I do think there’s something about sharing them publicly that amplifies my intentions.