Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Blog as Confessional

We are coming out from under (knock on wood) a time of illness. Both Max and Frank have had a case of resistant bronchitis. They were both hopped up on antibiotics and inhalers. I managed to escape with just a cold and a lingering cough. All this in the midst of some very good news that was a long stressful time in coming.

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you already know that Frank was awarded tenure a couple of weeks ago. The process was long and we all carried a lot of stress while we waited. In fact, I worried about the prospect of what not getting tenure would mean for us so much that I'm having a hard time putting the worry down. When I lay down at night, my worry brain automatically jumps on the tenure wheel and starts to run and I have to consciously remind myself, "wait – that's over – you don't have to worry about that anymore."

All the worry and the coughing has completely derailed my creative work. A submission that is awaiting five minutes worth of prep is sitting where it has perched for the last ten days, on the corner of my desk. In the little bit of time I've been able to spend sitting here, I just look at it out of the corner of my eye. Grab something to read, take a nap, wash a dish, anything but spend the five minutes needed to complete the damn thing and get it sent. Hopefully confessing here will give me the little push I need to get those poems off my desk and out into the larger world.


2 comments:

  1. I was feeling that dread with you (wondering, if he doesn't get it, does that mean packing up and moving to another college/university in search of the tenure?), which means, whatever I was feeling empathetically, must have actually been about one thousand times worse for you...it is SO understandable--difficult to create when there's a big knot in your stomach. But your brain will let go of the worry soon, and the poems are waiting...

    ReplyDelete
  2. i'm glad you mentioned this, i missed it on FB. CONGRATS YOU GUYS! besos y abrazos.

    nancy

    ReplyDelete