I’ve been back in Belfast for twenty-two days, and just these three-ish weeks have been a whirlwind and like a year in itself. I left my three-turned-six-week-long retreat back to the States over winter break with knots of dread in my belly, wrestling with a kind of guilty tension for aching for home (knowing a year ago, I sat in the same place praying that I’d get to have this very experience) while understanding the extreme privilege and unique opportunity that I’ve been afforded.
I wrote about this more in my most recent Mitchell blog, and even though less than a month separate that blog and this one, what I really see is just how enervating sitting in discomfort, estrangement, and unknowing can be. I didn’t realize how exhausting the process of adjusting and settling in this new context had been for me until I went home and was able to sink into the comforts of familiarity.1 But just like being away from home gave me a new light to understand my home, the South, and the context I was waiting feverishly to get away from, being away from Belfast inspired a new perspective that was just the mindset refresh I needed. And to my surprise, in these twenty-two days, so much has shifted positively. Let me skip ahead to the spoilers:
Everyday joys, delights, and gratitude
From the maintenance guy who came after work hours to fix my running toilet the day I came back from the States (and said, “I couldn’t go home knowing there was a student without a working toilet.”) to one of the staff members at my internship going out to buy Irish snacks for my classmate and me to try, there have been many reminders of the presence and power of community care.
My friend, Paul (who I’ve definitely mentioned in this little blog before), organized a trip for his class to go up to Corrymeela, a well-known and renowned conflict resolution center in the North, and let me tag along. We drove up to the top of the island and were there within an hour and a half— I often forget that Ireland, as a whole, is only about as big as Indiana. But I was struck by how such a short drive could make me feel transported to somewhere so different. Ballycastle, where Corrymeela is, is pastoral compared to Belfast. And looking over a cliff into the big wide sea with an endless sky where Scotland hid behind an island in the distance quickly reminded me how silly much of the everyday hustle we engage in is.
Corrymeela also reminded me of the power of genuine hospitality and intentional presence as we were greeted and treated as if we were family members coming home for a holiday. A number of my friends and professors from college have gotten to go to Corrymeela as part of yearly trips, and I was excited to mention I was from South Carolina and be asked if I was connected to Furman. It’s rare here that anyone even knows where South Carolina is geographically, let alone my tiny undergrad institution or anyone connected to it, so I felt significantly closer to home in that moment.
The day after we went to Corrymeela, Paul and I woke up early to take the train into a nearby county to run a 10k where some Game of Thrones scenes had been shot. We were never short of anything to talk about, and the run, though classically cold and rainy, was definitely worth the 25 pounds. Between conversations about being present as we are aware our time in Ireland is beginning to tick away and continuing our education as scholars interested in making a difference in the world, what I remember most is the full feeling of gratitude I felt. Gratitude for a friend who was generous enough to spend half his Saturday with me (to run! of all activities! for a race I originally asked him to run because I was nervous about taking the train by myself) and for the fact that this experience was even an option.
And this past weekend, my friends travelled for a long-weekend in Edinburgh, Scotland just because I asked. My long runs in my marathon training (this is whole ‘nother2 blog for another day!) are almost all half marathons or longer than halfs, so I thought it would be cool to use it as an excuse to run races in interesting places. Just my luck that there was a half marathon in Edinburgh on one of these half marathon long run days. And even luckier, my friends were willing to create a trip out of it. Sadly, 3/4 of us ended up battling some kind of illness (not covid for any of us!), and I’m still working through mine as I type this, but we had a fantastic time in such a cute and spooky city. I even ran into some Furman friends who are currently studying in London (Furman people always say this will happen when you least expect it, especially when you’re studying abroad, and sure enough!) And the run itself: so beautiful, but so hilly and so cold. All the pictures from the race are of people cheesing with their arms up… the two pictures of me? Grimacing and freezing!
Gratitude has been a life-force in this new chapter here in Belfast. Actually taking the time to cook myself new and interesting meals, carving out time to read for leisure, sharing my joy with my friends that by the end of the month, we will have a whole extra hour of sunlight each day! And by the middle of June, just when I am packing up to leave, we will have a whopping twelve hours of sunlight!
It’s easy to find something to look forward to, even as my school work is ramping up. I am in the beginning stages of planning my masters thesis, which I’m planning to write on Black (American) public history traditions, including the legacy of the Black public intellectual (from DuBois and Douglass to West, Coates, and Hannah-Jones?), and historic and contemporary assaults on knowledge.3 It is fun to begin to put on my scholar hat, and I’ll keep everyone updated as my 20,000 words begin to materialize on paper!
My friends and I have decided, especially after the disappointment-fiasco that was last semester’s reality setting in, that our priority is not school or schoolwork. That matters, and it will all get done, and be done well.4 But there are more important things to sweat, like how many counties in Ireland can we visit before August? How many races can I run in various places around Europe before my marathon in April? How many crazy tinder stories can we all share before its all done and over with? Very important priorities and with approx. 177 days left, we've got just enough time for only the things that really matter and that's the everyday joys, the once-in-lifetime sights, and all the friendship tenderness we can take.
Good news!!
In between these feel-good moments I’ve been having with friends, co-workers, and strangers, I also received some good news! After writing applications for months and waiting for another month to hear back, I received my first acceptance into a PhD program, two rejections, and I’m still waiting to hear back from one. There is much to say about this— why I’m pursuing this kind of degree in this kind of job climate, especially after my experiences in academia so far, etc— and I’m sure I will get to it in another blog, but for now, I am celebrating the realization of a goal I’ve held for a long time (with very special shoutouts and thank you’s and epics of gratitude to my advisors who helped me as an “honorary Sociology major” as I navigated individualized curriculum, through the emotional torment of my senior spring, and continued to advocate for me even as I was no longer their student in letters of recommendation.)
I now have a pretty solid idea of what my life is going to look like eight months from now. And I often think about how my life, even eight months ago, was so radically different than it is now— how strange to be in the flexible years of life and to not really be able to make sense of it all until you’re able to look back. Knowing this has made the time frame that I’m operating under with my time in Ireland so much more real and urgent. It is easier to appreciate this time with an awareness of how quickly the first four months have gone and how quickly the next five will follow. And hence, again, the reprioritization of this once-in-a-lifetime experience over letting school and schoolwork consume me.
I only applied to four schools for my PhD— two in American Studies, one in Sociology, and one in African-American Studies. Four is not a lot when applying to PhDs, especially as they are often extremely competitive. For the schools I applied to, about four or five students are accepted each year out of 100-200 applicants. I intentionally applied only to schools and departments with faculty I felt I could be a good fit with, but there’s so much that goes on in the admissions process that I really think can only be chalked up to luck and circumstance. So when I got rejections from two of the schools I applied to, I wasn’t too bummed. But the acceptance and the intentional recruitment that has followed since my initial notification has strengthened my belief that everything happens for a reason and that rejection is just redirection. I’m waiting to hear from the last school I applied to, but I feel very strongly that I already know where I’m going to end up. :)
What’s else? (Recommendations and other consumables)
I just finished some more Annie Ernaux (A Girl’s Story)— I wanna read all her essays before the end of the year, and I’m onto Mary Oliver’s Upstream. She’s so weird, but so good, too.5 At my internship as I’m sorting through hundreds of documents and sorting them into different categories (oh, the glamorous work of archiving), I’m listening to James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room on Audible and its been such a quick and interesting story. All good. Sounds Like a Cult by comedian Isa Medina and author Amanda Montell, and Meghan Markle’s Archetypes have been my go-to podcasts of late. Perfect for hot-girl walks, your daily commute, or evening-dish-washing-background-stimuli. And finally, Age of Worry (the Yebba cover) continues to be the anthem of this chapter of my life. Give it a listen if you need some mid-20s encouragement. That’s all for now!
A privilege itself that I recognize as not all of my friends here in Belfast even got to go home for the holidays though they equally have had their struggles and miss their families.
I know it should be “whole other,” but I swear everyone I know says “whole ‘nother” like, “whole another.” Southerners, please tap in with your opinions and experiences.
Another spoiler: racist white people in America are so uncreative with their attempts at disenfranchisement and oppression!
Grades finally came out for the first semester, and I did really well! The lesson I’m trying to remind myself of is that just because you *can* get a good grade on a paper you were supposed to write over two months but actually only spent four days on doesn’t mean you *should*.
She said she nuzzled up to her breastfeeding cat and then DRANK from her teat. Then, she wrote about how she watched a mother turtle lay eggs in nest, then she dug up the nest, scooped a bunch of the eggs out, scrambled them for a meal, and ATE THEM. And then when the other turtle eggs hatched, she said something along the lines of, they don’t know how lucky they are not to have been plucked by myself and SCRAMBLED. So, anyway… just a little weird.
Upstream is great. We love an essay book. This one is particularly good.
Re: ‘nother — have you dipped into linguistics much? It’s a fun field of study. Idk why we do this particular thing, but it seems to me that the two vowel sounds: finishing the word WHOLE and beginning the word OTHER are difficult to make distinct. So we might throw a lil consonant in there to have something to latch onto. Our mouths are always seeking ways to move that allow our language to make us understandable to one another.
Cool thesis project. One that might just bring you back to the Humanities and COM programs!! (But of course so happy for your acceptance and future plans!)