Thirty

Kurt Vonnegut suggested, "Write to please just one person." His was his first wife (God rest her soul, or Vonnegut's humanist equivalent of that). Until now, the little I've written has only conformed to that rule occasionally, and then, that person happened to be whoever could Dole out the A's, or, admitting my ego, myself. The latter might not be a bad thing. My three decade marker rushes to meet me in just a month but I've yet to learn how to do things for myself. To unlearn what American society teaches us about self, care, and desire-- women especially. This birthday also has me thinking about what I'm missing out here as life thunders forward into my big Thirty.

I've hated birthdays since I was twelve and I realized those tween Icelandic girls who published bestselling fantasy novels had already outpaced me, so my writing career was behind before it had properly started. Every year, the same agony and fewer words on the page. Every year, time's march despite Scandinavian precocity, that a nagging excuse.
A writer writes. I don't, or haven't for some time. But I'm out standing in not my, but a corn, field. Iowa City is the first UNESCO City of Literature in the US and now my home, far from my family-- old nuclear, new in-law, both sides extended, and much of chosen (friends) all. While I cannot promise these words will please any one of them-- you, dear readers-- I  please myself by writing for you.

A friend from the book club I once joined who is a saint of sorts writes monthly email update letters to her distant family members. I hope these little reflections will be small doses of love and thoughtfulness sent your way in the same way.

I'll leave the first unpublished entry, from my first days in Iowa City, here. So much has changed, even in a year and a half. What shall jigger the end of my decade and the year of 30?

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From August 2018:
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(This blog location is temporary).

Undergrads are everywhere. I left my shared office and didn't pick the correct door to the secret staircase, so I was walloped by students. They lined the stairs on both sides of the hallways, clinging to the banisters single-handedly while scrolling through their smartphones. Everyone has a hoodie or leggings or basketball shorts. I'd hoped donning a black blazer might distinguish me as Staff- a bona fide Teaching Assistant-- and part the bobbling mob of co-eds. Nope. Jostled just as much as their anonymous peers. 

It's Day 1 of Getting a PhD in Anthropology. For the study of humanity, I sure have a lot to choose from. To soften this reality, I picked socks with ring-tailed lemurs on them, a reminder that our non-human primate cousins are included in this field. I doubt that wearing rain-soaked animal ankle socks under beat-up Converse add to my air of authority, but my discussion sections don't meet until next week, so I don't have to be a commanding presence until next Monday. The other four students in my cohort aren't all as lucky and some texted in panic last night, anxious about teaching. They're all fresh-faced from undergrad themselves, nothing like my decade of lived experience for them to hang on to when a room full of teens stare them down. 

As for my own courses, I've done today's reading, started printing our tomorrow's, and downloaded Zotero at the insistence advice of my pale, black-clad, 2-years-and-an-MA-wizened academic "sister," the only student who shares my advisor. "Remember, you're allowed to be a human," she repeated when we met at the grad student party Saturday afternoon, "so take time to be a human. Sleep, eat. Don't try to read everything. YOU ARE ALLOWED TO BE A HUMAN." 

Anthropology PhD student goal #1: be a human.