Tonight my fiancee and I went to hear Junot Diaz speak at a writing awards ceremony on the Portland State University campus. If you don't know who he is, he's the guy that wrote that book that's all been all over the place for the past year or two- with the blood splattering out of the silhouetted head (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao). He won the Pulitzer for that book. Then he came to PSU to read us some short stories after some students got awards for their writing. He was amazing and entertaining and witty and used a lot of bad words without offending anyone (I think). He griped about the demise of American libraries, which was either well-timed or eerily acute, since Multnomah County (where I live) is facing a levy renewal vote to keep libraries open (read about it at http://portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=133358375710643300).
Watching him speak I was reminded of other events like this one. Last year I saw/met Kate Bornstein (also at PSU-I geeked out). Two years ago I heard/met Tamora Pierce, and was geeking out pretty badly then, too. About six years ago I heard/met Sherman Alexie at U of O- it was sad because I didn't even know he would be there until the last minute, and rode with a friend, so I didn't get the chance to bring in my copy of Reservation Blues to get signed. :( Writers are celebrities minus the attitude and plus something intelligent to say, so it's about as cool as it gets to see them. You can tell they don't see themselves as especially amazing, either. They're just people, doing their thing.
I was also reminded of awards I've won, awards ceremonies I've been to, and why I don't see myself as amazing or particularly accomplished. I wonder if they feel the same way- Okay, this year I won the Pulitzer but every other year I've languished in obscurity... I know that I love seeing people win awards for their creativity and talent. I love to see them love it. Recognition is lovely. It feels great. One of the pitfalls of recognition is that we measure ourselves and our success by it. Junot Diaz spoke of what he calls the Great Struggle to separate our individual dreams from the dreams imposed on us by society. We will only be happy when we get to do what we want and be who we want, without mixing that up with other people's dreams. Recognition as a measure of success is someone else's dream. If you did something great, it would be great whether or not we all cheered. But oh, it feels good when we all cheer.
Because I now know that Junot Diaz is 43 (he looks quite a bit younger), and celebrity is ephemeral, even for very talented people, I feel empowered. It is (dare I say it) transformative knowledge (rather than informative knowledge). It puts some things into perspective, regarding success and recognition, and just being in a crowd of people who, like me, lament the state of reading in this country, wish to create because it's never too late, and would rather hear Diaz read a story off his iPhone than watch another TV show, made me feel so good and renewed and aware of my own success.
Unless you've read my CV, you probably don't know that I have done some neat stuff academically. I have an Associate of Science in English (yes, it's also a science!) from Linn-Benton Community College, a Bachelor of Arts in English with an Emphasis on Literature and in European History from Oregon State University. I am very close to a Master of Arts in Ancient and Medieval History from Portland State University. I won an award in 2002 for Club/Co-Curricular Member of the Year. In 2004, I had two poems published in the literary journal The Eloquent Umbrella. I won the Mary Joe Bailey Scholarship in English in 2007, and the Robert W. Smith Award in History in 2008 (both for writing). I qualified for Phi Alpha Theta (National Honors Society for Historians) every term of my undergraduate studies, and joined in 2010 as a graduate. I presented a paper on Roman cosmetics, perfume, and hair care in 2011 at the Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference. Also in 2011, I presented research on Jewish, Christian, and polytheist uses of cosmetics in first-century Rome, via podcast, at the European Association of Archaeologists Annual Conference, and submitted a paper for publication through the same conference. I have also been employed as a researcher on Aristotelian, Ovidian, and Thomistic references in a 17th-century play by Lope de Vega, and on the osteopathic profession in the state of Oregon. I also submitted a paper on becoming a necromancer in medieval England to the Vagantes Conference, and had it rejected. I applied to PhD programs at Brown and Harvard, and was rejected (which was nice because I don't want to have to write a dissertation). I consider even being able to apply to these an achievement.
In 2012, the academic front looks bleak. I was nearly done with my thesis (Self Presentation in Early Imperial Rome) then oral surgery, reality, and laziness got together, and now I am back to ignoring it. I sometimes feel guilty about ignoring it- the $50,000 privilege-to-write I'll be paying for until I am old, grey and toothless. I sometimes feel bad that I am enjoying the stupid daily grind of working, paying my bills, and spending money I've earned rather than borrowed from the federal government. I fear I am deceiving myself that it will sort itself out, and that I will one day be totally enthused about finishing the last chapter (plus edits), because it has cost too much and taken too much for me to just hang loose on. But I now totally get it that this is a dry spell in an otherwise exceptional career. I get that attending readings, book signings, awards ceremonies, and conferences is super cool, and one of the things that really drives me is simply being in the presence of others who value what I value. I love that for the first time, I am experiencing my fiancee as someone who is passionate about her writing and about writing in general. I feel closer to her now, because she too, is a part of the intellectual milieu which makes my boat float. I have always known her to be highly intelligent and interested in world affairs, but to see her on fire about ART, well... that's a whole new level of mental intimacy.
To be in a room with others who can lament what the American education system has done to reading, and the shameful, slow, stifling of the arts, is to be swimming in comfortable waters. Perhaps the human mind needs to feel at home, and perhaps that is why we attend pointless-seeming conferences (Oregon Women in Higher Education, 2012) to bemoan our lack of intellectual stimulation and the crushing burdens of bloated bureaucracy and achieve-or-die standards that offer no work-life balance. Perhaps stagnation is all in our heads- as in ten years I've done so much and still feel like a ho-hum student. Perhaps Rudyard Kipling was right (as blasphemous as that seems) and Triumph and Disaster are a couple of impostors.
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