Confession
Upfront, I’m a PhD candidate in Literature & Criticism. So logic stands to reason that my love for books - for words - is innate, something inherent woven into the strands of my DNA.
But the conscious choice to study what’s innately inside of you can lead to disillusionment, frustration, and a niggling need to question your very existence - not through some overwhelming existential crisis, but through the desperate attempt to understand why you would consciously choose to look at your component parts this closely, this intensely. Grad school is a never-ending mental cage match where you’re pitted against every insecurity you’ve ever collected over the years. There is absolutely no way to come out of the match without irrevocable damage and lots and lots of scar tissue.
Ask any grad student and they’ll tell you they shouldn’t be allowed to make adult decisions anymore because an “adult” decision led them to this unfairly stacked match that no amount of preparation and practice can help them win without the stinging bite of hard knocks. Especially if they’re a grad student in the Humanities (the Sciences tend to get the money, the glory, and the oooo’s and ahhhh’s when Dr. So-So is announced; say you’re a PhD in Literature and people tend to ask, so, like, what do you do with that exactly? The answer: everything and nothing).
This is to say that my love for books has not disappeared; rather, it’s waned, boiling down to a slow simmer, one which flares on occasion, but only after some serious foreplay. What can I say? It takes awhile to pique my interest.
But then I come across some pages and words that remind me why stories comprise my genetic material - I think, and view the world, in words, in narratives, mundane and profound, simple and complex, and disturbing and transcendent. It’s been a while since I went without sleep so I could finish a book and honestly, I’ve feared that my love - as true and forever it may be - had forsaken me, in favor of a fly-by-night, wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am relationship set up.
But then, on a whim of severe procrastination, I picked up mimsyhale‘s 100 Days and it was that oh - oh, there you are, I’ve been looking for you forever kind of moment. So Ms. Hale: thank you. Thank you for re-introducing me to my love and reminding me that once you have love, it’s impossible to remove the fingerprints of it (and reminding me that I never want the removal, even when I’m frustrated and pissed off at the mess the residual stain leaves behind). Thank you for permitting me the ability to rediscover why stories make this world livable and spectacular and so damn interesting that I don’t mind - at all, whatsoever, no sir, absolutely not - the sleep deprivation.
You’ve been granted a gift ma’am and you sure know how to use it, to twist every last drop of wonderment-covered-in-glitter out of it. I will be forever grateful for this reminder and I wish you many stories filling endless pages, stories that make people feel a little less lost, frustrated, and pissed off and a lot more awake and alert and present. You are remarkable and I feel deeply honored and privileged that you’ve shared your gift.
In my humble, PhD candidate in Literature & Criticism’s opinion, your stories are the stuff of permanence. Never stop writing, Ms. Hale. You’ll write the world a little brighter with every word you print.
My thanks to Sam for this beautifully poetic and meaningful personal commentary. I’ve always said that more than anything, I write because I want to know that I’ve affected someone, even if just one person. What a gift to be given :)
