Yes, I’m sure someone’s used that adorable acronym before, but I would rather commit to a subject line and post than dwell and mull and dither all morning. Like the good book says, expediency is the mother of half-cooked invention. And by the “good book” I mean my microwave manual.
I’m feeling a little Heaney this morning, neither here nor fully there. I’ve scripted this week’s classes and most of next week’s, I’ve filed away much of the grading and committee work I’ve got to do, and I have nothing stashed in my “Pending” folder on my desktop that requires my immediate attention. Accordingly, I’m waiting instead for shoes of various shapes and sizes to drop: will I need to set aside the 10th to hear grade grievances or academic integrity cases? will I get the grant that will allow me to devote much of the summer to rounding out a verse collection? will I be able to knock down enough projects to make a compelling case for tenure and promotion in the fall? I find myself with more shoes than feet and more time than tasks at hand. When that happens I tackle my day-to-day business with a vengeance and let the rest gestate, incubate, percolate, or otherwise ripen.
My imagination tends to be a generative place, and I think I’ve devised a pretty savvy scheme for composting and fertilizing fallow fields during these stretches of rest. This morning, for example, I spent a few minutes transcribing story notes that occurred to me last night; in the process of typing up this post I’ve jotted down a few lines of verse that strike me immediately as keepers. Those habits and acts of mind depend on a process that I don’t fully understand but somehow manages to get me there (which is really just here, but later and somewhat brighter). I’ve spent enough of my life fighting my untoward tendencies; I really don’t need to stand in the way of anything else that already works.
Accordingly, while the creative world has just kicked off NaPoWriMo, I’ll be here, getting all Candide up in the hizzy, tending my own garden. I wish participants all the best, but in the past couple of years I’ve come to understand myself well enough to be content with my own poky horticulture and the prospect of peculiar fruit.
