On the Landing

When I think about goals, I think in terms of staircases.  You climb a bunch of steps, then you come to a place where the stairs kind of pause and sometimes change direction.  You get a little tiny rest, and then resume your climb until you get where you're going.  That's how I feel today.  Yesterday afternoon I received word that my article, the latest version of a project I've been working on for years, will be published next year.

In order to receive tenure at my institution, I have to publish a minimum of one article in an approved journal.  To many in academia, that doesn't seem like much, but it's a recognition of the emphasis on teaching and the heavy load we as faculty are expected to carry at our school.  With the publication of "my own dear child" as I've called my little work, I got to the landing in the tenure staircase.  I still have to finish putting together this year's file, and will have to do one more next fall, but the hardest part is over.

Just as important, at least to me, is that the life of a young woman will be remembered.  Even though she lived and died more than ninety years before I was born, I've come to know her and genuinely like her as a person.  To get the article done, I marinated myself in what was known about her, in her letters, diary, and photographs.  I searched for every tiny mention of her in newspapers and books.  I wept over her obituary.  When I sent the article to the editor, I missed my "friend."

Finally, working on that article really did warm me up for concentrated writing on my book, as I asserted in previous blog posts.  I went right back to working on it and although I don't have much to show on paper for the amount of effort I've put into it all summer, I can say that my finished product will be much better for what I've learned in hashing things out.  I'm a better writer than I was three months ago.  I've re-discovered a store of patience, so necessary for this process.  I have also re-discovered the joy I used to get out of research.  I have lost my antipathy for my book project.

I'm about to step off of this landing and onto a new set of stairs.