I seem to be writing about my writing a fair bit recently, a wonderfully meta-scriptorial (if that’s the word for it) series of pieces that may or may not serve to help others get through their own writing experiences. I nurture the hope that they do, and I have some reason for that hope; I occasionally get comments from students that they have looked at what I have left here and used it to their own advantage. So that much is to the good–and I hope that I can offer more that will continue to be of aid, if not in my classroom, in the efforts of others in theirs and in their lives outside them.

In the spirit of discussing my own writing with an eye toward helping others with theirs, I offer the following comments, then, and note that I have recently returned to a practice I’d long employed and then too long set aside before taking it up again: journaling. Not long before I completed my student teaching, I started putting my pen to the pages of actual bound journals, doing so partly as a meditative act and partly because, with the looming completion of my undergraduate studies, I felt quite adult and thought that keeping such a record was the kind of thing that an adult ought to do. I kept the practice up, albeit not as regularly or thoroughly as I ought to have done, across the years of my graduate study and past it, finally wearing out in May 2017, when I faltered and failed to keep up with my intent, and I let the intention go as I had so many others.

Or I tried to do so, at least. Really, I had no more success in setting aside my journal-writing and my regrets about it than I have had about leaving academia (about which I’ve also done a fair bit of writing in recent memory); the uncompleted volume of my journal stared at me form my desk, eyeless but still with plaintively blaming gaze, and as often as I looked again at academic job listings, I berated myself for not taking up my pen again. (That is to say “entirely too damned often.”) And so I acquiesced at length to that particular urge, and I picked up a leather-bound journal once again, beginning to put my pen to it–and using pens long given to me as gifts, to boot, rather than the plastic throw-away things I had been using.

It has only been a few days since I have returned to the practice, to be sure, but I already feel better about my writing from doing so. My pen-hand is still quite poor, admittedly, but more than a decade of fairly regular practice in the earlier journals had not improved it, so I am not surprised that it has remained as ugly as it ever was. More importantly, I feel myself better able to put words together in some semblance of legible order–something I attribute to the resumption of more practice writing, and doing so engaging more of myself than typing allows. For when I write with pen, I invoke different muscle memories than those I use when I type, and the added engagement of the kinesthetic–and the olfactory, with the ink, paper, and leather each having their own aroma–brings more to me and so calls more from me. I have to think it helps me, and I need all the help I can get.

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A recent Twitter thread in which I participated sprang from a new parent commenting on having to sing lullabies despite not knowing many. The new parent is a long-time friend with whom I’d discussed impending parenthood (and likely with not entirely welcome advice along the way, as I realize now, for which I apologize), one who’d shared with me excitement at becoming a parent, and the lullabies comment was posted publicly, so I thought I’d chime in on it. Doing so showed me a variety of versions of one particular lullaby that seems fairly consistently used–at least in its earlier verses–and prompted from me the comment that the lullabies my wife and I sing to our daughter go to strange places.

As I think on it more, I am more convinced of it. The original example, singing of a series of acquisitions starting from a mockingbird, finds its way to a Grecian urn that will be discarded if it does not ode; my wife is responsible for most of how the verses get there, although I admit to following up a few verses later with talk of a singing thrust that ought to beard. But my wife and I both hold advanced degrees in English–we fell in love over Beowulf, in fact–so that we would make slanted references to older verse and fairy tales could perhaps be expected. And I think that neither of us necessarily recalls the lullabies we were sung, either; my wife is the younger of two, and while I am the elder of two, it has been decades since my brother was young enough to take lullabies.

Making such a comment, though, reminds me that there were many years I fell asleep with music in my ears, a Walkman or a Discman slid under my pillow and headphones clasped about my head. It is for such reasons that songs like “The Pinnacle” and “Miracles out of Nowhere” remain in my mind as strongly as they do, and that my daughter’s been sung to sleep to the tune of “Lonely Wind” and “All the World” more than once. I imagine something similar informs my wife singing Beatles tunes and Simon and Garfunkel to Ms. 8 to ease her towards sleep. And I have to think that my brother, the musician, who looks forward to the birth of his son, will have even broader a selection for his coming child.

What it says about us that we pass on what we pass on is always worth consideration, of course, and I know that what my wife and I are giving to Ms. 8 shows our backgrounds and training–and, in my case, at least, both the delight in working with what I treat and the lingering bitterness of the times I have been thwarted in pursuing that work. I know that the latter is less than helpful, and I try to hide it from her (although I know she sees more clearly than to allow me to do so), but I worry also that the nerdiness embedded in most of the things I do will not only color or taint her perspectives on the world, but that it will lead her into pitfalls I faced–and I would have her avoid my mistakes, if it could be. And so even something as seemingly benign and commonplace as a lullaby sung to a child who may well never consciously remember hearing it has to be examined a bit more carefully–not only for figuring out how to proceed with the song itself, but also for figuring out how to guide that audience down the years to come.

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One of the things I have done with my writing is to collect it. That is, I keep copies of the things that I have written, many of which are gathered into large computer files and arranged by genre and chronology. There are reasons beyond the narcissism I believe endemic to all who will write–or draw, or paint, or perform in any way they seek to have others see and appreciate–for me to do so. Having a perspective on how my writing has changed since the earliest pieces I have in the collection–early in my life as an undergraduate English major–helps. Having a record of ideas I’ve treated and might return to (although that happens but rarely, to be sure) also helps. Less helpful but quietly comforting is the idea that there is more to what I have done than many or most will know, that there are secrets not kept out of shame but to have something special that might somehow, sometime be of value to some others. And the idea that I am leaving a record for Ms. 8 (and perhaps others) has its attractions for me, the more so since my journal-writing seems long since to have lapsed, and I am not at all sure that it will begin again.

As I was updating the file recently, though, and reading over the comments I have left about each of the pieces I’ve put in it, I was reminded that the collection is a collection of failure. Each piece in it is one that I either wrote for a class and never revised and resubmitted, so that I failed to follow up on ideas, or it was one that I sent out for publication and failed to put into print–even print with so low an entry barrier as this webspace. However I might have felt about what I wrote when I wrote it, however wrong I think the selectors were who chose other pieces to take up than mine, the collected writing I have gathered over some years now–and I’ve been working on the project intermittently for quite a while–is a record of failure, yet one more such for me, and one that I have put together myself–even if I did not think that was what I was doing when I was doing it.

As with the other records of my failures, though, that of my failed publications will likely remain with me. Part goes to my bibliophilic tendencies; I keep text. Also, again, I do occasionally pull older ideas and rework them. Too, Ms. 8 may someday be interested in reading what I’ve written, or my wife might, or someone else who decides they give something that resembles a damn might. And I admit to no small degree of automasochism; I tend to flagellate myself with reminders of my failings, not to spur me to later success (clearly), but because…well, I’m actually not sure why. But I know I keep doing it, over and over again.

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On 8 April 2018, the online Chronicle of Higher Education published Erin Bartram’s “Why Your Advice for Ph.D.s Leaving Academe Might Be Making Things Worse.” In the piece, Bartram summarizes responses to her earlier piece regarding leaving academia (about which more here) before moving into explications of two points she recommends to those who will give advice to they who depart academia: know that the advice is of limited use, and know that the advisee is not fully known to the adviser. Although Bartram goes to some length to explain her assertions, they still come off as a rather sharp rebuke to perhaps well-meaning but generally inept academics whose own circumstances are as assured as their advisees’ are not.

I’ve noted several times that I have more or less done as Bartram is doing; I have long since given up on landing a full-time, tenure-line–or even continuing non-tenure-track–academic job (although, as I’ve also noted, I still pick up contingent work as a useful supplement to my income–but I am under no illusion that it will be a permanent thing). I am perhaps a bit ahead of her in finding steady work outside academe, though it was not an easy thing to do; I put in nearly 200 job applications before landing my current position, which is one of those nonprofit jobs that “look like a dream” to Bartram, and I was very much in the position to take any job that would have me. (Not many would, else I’d not have had to put in nearly 200 applications to find one.) And I would not presume to say that the challenges I have faced are the same as those she has faced and is facing. Even so, I find much of interest in her article–although my experience with getting advice when exiting academia has generally been from the other side of things. That is, what I’ve gotten has been from embedded support structures and those outside academia.

That I have support structures in place is a boon, I know, and I am not unmindful of how lucky I am to have it in place. But that does not mean I was not immensely frustrated with it at many points while I tried to make my pivot to the world outside the ivory tower. And that frustration derived in large part from those outside academia, in stable jobs that they have had for years, giving advice that rang of limited knowledge of current circumstances and of particulars of my situation. It is difficult, after all, not to find it vexatious to be told to send out more job applications when, in the space of a month, I’d send out more applications than some of the people who gave me advice, well-meaning and acting from love though they were, have in lives decades longer than my own. It is not an easy thing to be told by another to be open to taking all kinds of jobs and to be told by that same person the next day–or even later in the same conversation–not to look at lesser work (as though the cost-benefit analysis hadn’t been done and done and done, and as though better jobs called back–not that lesser jobs did any better). And it is a challenge, indeed, to face with equanimity being told not to give up when many years and a mid- to high-three-digit job-application count are already on record, bespeaking a dogged determination in the face of no after no after no.

A common definition of insanity comes to mind. So does the idea of knocking at doors until knuckles bleed and the bones begin to fragment.

I suppose the point I’m making about Bartram’s essay–which, again, I enjoyed reading and found useful–is that what she discusses is far from confined to the academy. It’s a useful thing to note for more than one reason. Aside from being a reminder–as if one is needed–that the job market sucks from most angles, among others, it serves as a reminder that the ivory tower stands embodied in the world. Perhaps if it is able to resolve its problems, it might help make a start on those the rest of the planet faces.

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That I have a child, a daughter born in 2014, is not something of which I’ve made a secret–although I do not discuss her much online, to be sure. (When I do, I usually refer to her as “Ms. 8” for reasons those who know her and her parents will understand–and which were her mother’s idea, although I approve of it entirely.) And, as I am a parent and I try, with less success than I might like, to be engaged in my daughter’s deeds and doings, there are no few things that give me pause, that concern me greatly. One such is that she will end up having some of the same regrets that I do–not of things left undone, but of things done.

To explain, ungrateful as I know it will make me sound: I regret doing many of the things I have done, things that other people look back on as having been fun and worthwhile experiences. High school prom (on my mind because of the season as I write this and the things that come across my news feeds as a result of that season) is one example; I went to several, spent hundreds of dollars on each, and regret most every moment and every penny put to those ends, since they’ve done me not a bit of good, and I’d’ve been better off putting the time and effort represented to work or reading. Many of the parties I’ve attended–and, believe it or not, there’ve been more than a few–have been similar; while I did have some few that were good experiences, more of them resulted in nothing more than me waking up too late the next morning, head pounding from a hangover and withdrawal from my drug of choice (caffeine, of course). One, a New Year’s party, sticks out in my mind as being a particularly bad experience. Hell, even some of the book-buying I’ve done pains me to think back upon–and I read.

However it might be that I feel as I do–and I’ve heard quite a bit about it from many people across many years, thank you, so I need no more of it–I am worried that I will pass it on to my daughter despite any efforts I make against doing so. Young as Ms. 8 is as I write this, she is already able to see through at least some of the acting I do to be her father. (I tend to subscribe to the idea that we perform roles for one another, roles based on our understanding and experience and belief about who and what we ought to be to do the things that we are or should be doing.) She knows, for example, that I take delight in some of her “bad” behavior, even as I am obliged to rebuke her for it. (Wrong for all the right reasons Ms. 8 may be at times, but I still have to caution her against the wrong.) And so I find myself caught in the cleft fork of wanting to caution her away from doing things that I see are like to do her little good if any while at the same time knowing that she may well enjoy and remember fondly what I may not have and do not. Too, there is the fact that, owing to my overall orientation, I have little idea how to have the kind of fun many of the other people I know prize–but she seems poised to be the kind of person who delights in such things.

I know, of course, that my task is to support Ms. 8 in exploring who she is and to do what can be done to keep her safe while allowing her to take the risks and experience the consequences she needs to take and feel to grow into a person who will not need me to be with her. (I hope she will want me around, of course, but I also know the day will come when I cannot be with her as she might want, far off though I hope it is, and she needs to be ready for it.) I remain unsure how to do it, though, and I worry that I will fail.

I dare not sing of love in little song,
For I know what I have to give is small;
I know it stretches little, lasts not long,
And for a tiny thing there’s not much call.
I’d sing of little else in such a form,
For I know that my love is of a piece
With all the rest of me; it does conform
To other parts of me, bears no release.
I’m not among the mighty, I well see,
For I know that my deeds earn little note,
And that, perhaps, is how it ought to be–
Unspoken words, at least, will stop no throat.
Yet still, I feel the call to sing in verse
On printed page, though I little rehearse.

Now that April’s well and since begun,
And March is put away with all its fun,
And broken springs are mended on their way
While students of all ages look to play
In summer sun that has yet to appear
In diverse places, known both far and near
As sites for pilgrimages to undertake
Before the wallet grows thin as a rake
In pockets of shorts from closets pulled
And rated highly as from websites culled
Reports will come from users pleased and not,
The people look to see weather grow hot
In northern reaches of the globéd world,
Across whose skies the Milky Way’s unfurled
And where the mighty Dipper ladles stars
At times when all-aged folk look for their bars
And others stare up into inky night,
The darkness welcome respite for their sight.

Have we not heard     how, in days of yore,
In that best of bard-craft,     boasting of deeds
Passing in power     the potent among us,
Even the ablest     in might of arms
Unlocked a word-hoard     to open a way
As often as ever     angry hands raised,
Gripped with grim walkers     in grime and in mire?
Much did the mighty     make of the riches,
The treasures of tongues     that told of their deeds,
Passed on their proverbs,     pieces of wisdom.
Words on the wind     whisper through ages.
Put them on paper,     and they pass down,
Read at remove,     and recall the past,
Nurture the now     and needs deep fulfill
When fate has gone as it must.

O, witty master of the flea,
Twas in St. Paul’s years past I did you see
And gloried that I’d come to stand
And look on whom I’d read in foreign land.
Both pale and silent, you looked out
On many visitors who milled about,
But few to you respects did pay
As I made sure to do that years-gone day–
And to my shame, alas! I could not stay.

Other masters, I have read,
And their verses ring yet in my head,
Yet yours of twin bloods’ pamper’d swell
Remains in mind; I do yet know it well,
And teach it every chance I get.
It strikes the students near where they are set
And shows them more than most the glee
That comes in reading older things; they see
That structured words might their minds free.

So, though my studies take me back
Before your time, yet your words, I’d not lack,
So glad am I to’ve read your verse–
The words that, even now, I would rehearse.
I thank you, then, whose work is done
And turn to mine that’s scarce begun
That I might serve as I’ve been served
And in time come to find praise well deserved
And, like you, thought of me be well preserved.

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