REPORT(s)

Borrowing from Maddie B. No pictures, just a lot of words.

Hello newsletter-meets-blog— It has been a minute! I have two handfuls of half-drafted blogs that I hope to get to eventually, but for now, to borrow a form from my dear friend, Maddie, and her blog Miss Maddie B’s School for Girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!, here is a quick(ish) REPORT:

I don’t know how Maddie came up with this, but I love how she’s able to communicate with such vulnerability and depth even in a form of such brevity

In settling into St. Louis and getting a feel for the city, figuring out where I might find community, and generally trying to figure out who I’m going to be and what I’m going to do here, I’ve been much more intentional about rediscovering former parts of my identity that I have let fall to the wayside in chasing other aspirations.

This includes hobbies, which I have struggled to invest in over the past few years because I feel the pressure to conflate what you do with who you are. I also feel tension with ideas of “productivity” and placing value in a product that comes from investing in hobbies.

Even as I consciously know that hobbies are about the joy of participating in an activity for leisure (the process), I still stall out of fear that my work (even if it is just for myself) is not “good.”

I have been pushing myself to quiet this inner voice by creating structure to invest in the hobbies of my past: writing, reading, creative journaling, etc. Structure has looked like applying for a weekend poetry weekend, allowing myself a full 24 hours of no work— just play and rest with an internal agreement not to guilt myself into working, and experimenting with morning, commute, and night routines that allow me to engage with reading (or listening) to a book or journaling as a kind of steadying activity where I otherwise might have just buried my nose into my phone.

I’ll get to reading on the next ‘R’, but creating these structures for rediscovery has also started to lead me towards community. Being connected with local poets, especially those who all lead very different lives and create very different work, reminds me that the process of flexing your creative process is more important than the product and that really there is no (completely)¹ wrong way to do art.

I’ve been watching people use the prompts in The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron in YouTube videos, and I put the book on my Christmas list to see if the practices might translate into a writing practice. But for now I’m creating small structure where I can just to keep my mind moving in the same kinds of ways I am investing in the movement of my body with sports.

I try to think of these acts of rediscovery as investing in the development of my holistic self and the rejection that I can only wear one hat, only be good at one thing, or only have one identity— which, in some ways, characterizes how I used to think about the things I like to do. But a friend recently reminded me that the end of the depressing jack of all trades quote actually shows it is a compliment: “Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one.” So, ‘R’ is also for rejecting limiting ideas of self.

In mid-September, I finished my masters thesis for my Public History program in Belfast and recently received a first-class mark (the equivalent of a US A)! I get to travel back to Belfast in December with my family for graduation and to scope out a few things for future research I’ll be doing with my advisor here in St. Louis. It is funny how such an unexpected place can become so important in your life so quickly. I am welcoming this new orientation to Belfast, which felt bittersweet much of the time during my Mitchell year, and looking forward to research, reuniting with friends, and getting to appreciate the things I didn’t realize mattered so much to me.

I’ve got a blog that will come out eventually titled, A Recovering Workaholic’s Guide to Grad School, and the ethos of it is: work is always going to be work, so prioritize the things that bring you joy and speak to your humanity.

I’m lucky (privileged) to be pursuing a career path that can be very flexible and forgiving with how I spend my time, but it can just as easily swing in the other direction, being unforgivingly demanding of time and energy— especially weaponizing a kind of scarcity mentality that says if you’re not outputting in a very particular way, then you will not be able to attain the kind of lifestyle and status that comes with being a scholar.

I see how academia can swallow folks whole, and I don’t want that for myself. I have never been one to follow a traditional path just because that seems to work for other people, and I’m not interested in doing that now.

At the center of my grad school philosophy is prioritizing the cultivation of a life outside of academia. I love the things I do (& will do) for work, but I don’t want to be the annoying academic at a party who cannot talk about anything except school and work.

I saw a tweet recently that challenged academics on the site to introduce themselves without mentioning what they do for work or their research interests. The responses people came up with were tender, funny, and interesting, but many said it was somewhat difficult.

I would introduce myself like this:

I’m a tenderhearted Black optimist who believes in justice and truth-telling. I am a proud South Carolinian and I love to dig into the bittersweetness of calling the South my home. I value community, courage, and creativity, and I anchor the things I do in these values. I love that feeling after mile three on a run when your body goes on cruise control and I love the opportunity to prove that I can do something challenging. I like an excuse to buy all the latest gear for a hobby just to ditch it a few months later. I love sitting at my grandma’s kitchen table, planning my future idealistically, and playing Sims.

How much more can we learn about each other when we do not rely on the content of our jobs to characterize us as people?

I’ve been in St. Louis just a little over two and a half months now. Three months ago exactly, I left Belfast with my life packed into three bursting suitcases and two backpacks strapped to either side of me. It amazes me constantly how quickly my life has changed.

Not very long ago, I was spending my evenings on picnic blankets in Botanic park with my friends, eating Maggie May’s takeout and scarfing down Al Gelato before it melted. I was running alongside the Lagan, looking down at the people rowing crew, thinking, thank god that’s not me anymore when it was just me a few months prior.

I knew my life would be changing quickly— a year is not a long time, even though it can feel endless and unrelenting in the moment, but it still is a shock to think about how drastically different life can be within that timespan.

People keep asking me what I think of St. Louis, how I’m liking it, if I’m feeling settled. I have few answers for them. I think about how long it took me to feel settled in Belfast— right until the last few weeks, and even then I was still aching to go home. Having had that experience reminds me that it takes a while (including a lot of growing pains) before a true decision can be made about a place. So, I’m leaning into the growing pains in St. Louis. I am finding my rhythm in routines and seeking community in places I might not have looked before.

My trick in Belfast was to pick a place on a map that I wanted to visit and to use my weekend-long run as an excuse to go. Last week’s spot was into one of the nearby neighborhoods that I usually only see in passing on the Metro. This week I ran through the wealthy neighborhoods nearby WashU to get to Cyclebar. Sometime soon, I want to run to this vegan restaurant near Tower Grove, and some other time, I want to run to the arch— it’s only 7 miles there, which makes it a perfect out and back.

All of this to say— ‘O’ is for putting out the feelers and sticking things out in the weird, uncomfortable, and annoying beginning months.

I’ve been back on my pop-lit audiobook grind in between the reading I do for my theory and methods courses. Last month I listened to Yellowface by R.F. Kuang and half of The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor. Yellowface was a solid three star for me— interesting but overall unsatisfying. I have not been able to finish The Late Americans— it is written beautifully, but it has a similar vibe to A Little Life wherein there’s a lot of suffering and I’m not really in the mood to read/listen to such depressing stories.

I’ve been steadily reading These Impossible Things by Salma El-Wardany when I have nothing else to do. It is a surprisingly engaging pop-lit book I picked up at Barnes and Noble because it was on sale. It is about three Muslim friends in London who have a falling out. They are navigating their mid-twenties and struggling with relationships, religion, work, and cultural tensions. It’s a super tender read and very relatable. It will probably end up being a 4-star for me.

I’m finishing up None of This is True by Lisa Jewell as an audiobook. No spoilers! But things are definitely heating up in the last two hours and thirty minutes that I have left!

I occasionally pick up Sleeping Things by Holly Iglesias, a book of poems that a random guy in a D.C. bookstore bought for Mia and me. I picked it up and saw that the first poem was set in St. Louis, so I called it a sign to get it. I want to read more poetry, but I find that the hardest for me to dedicate time to. Mia gave me her copy of Danez Smith’s Homie, and I got Obit by Victoria Chang while in D.C. with her, so I’ve got some stuff to work with… it’s just a matter of sitting down to actually engage with it.

I am allowing myself to be a bit haphazard in my reading, picking up books, setting them down for a while, and finding my way back to them. It is always a battle to free myself from toxic narratives about what is worth reading and what is “good.” I’m coming to terms with being a book ditcher and allowing myself to enjoy “Cheeto reads.”

I would like to say something profound here, but I will leave this poem here, which Farris introduced me to:

Someone recently said to me that it surprised them how much I seemed to love my hometown— that they had not met a young person who loved their hometown in a long time. I was asked why this was the case for me, and I have a few thoughts:

I did not always feel this way. I did not love Greenville growing up and frequently thought about my life continuing as far away as possible from that annoyingly white and gentrifying town in the middle of a valley beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains.

But everything leads back to that one decision to call attention to the name of a building. I found community, courage, creativity, love, heartbreak— and I don’t mean in the relationship sense, but in the character-defining way of having no other option but to stand your ground and speak when your voice shakes and to realize exactly who is in your corner and who is not. I was a child then and I fell in love with Greenville when I was forced to fight for my own vision of the future of my community. How beautiful to even be able to feel a sense of ownership in a community and to get to engage at that level— that is what I can appreciate in looking back on such a traumatic experience.

And I experienced that dichotomy of that bittersweet cycle of love and heartbreak in my hometown again and again as I grew into my early adult self there. Considering all of its ugliness, I agree, there is so much to dislike about Greenville, but I also know there is so much to love, especially the people who are constantly fighting for its soul.

So ‘S’ is for sending my love to those who love me and stand with me and have stood with me and for those who stay. My friends creating space for intentional, creative, and inclusive community in our hometown. My friends who show up every week at the library to fight against the weird conservatives and their propagandistic censorship campaigns. My friends who reflect and share their own bittersweet relationship to the place we have grown up in beautiful and tender blogs. My family who always make space for me to come home.

All y’all.

And thank you to the friends who have sent me letters over the past few months— I swear I will get back to you ASAP. I appreciate your letters and gifts. You make living 12+ hours away feel not so far after all.

Much love.

1. We can talk about craft and the work of people like *shudder* Rupi Kaur another day…