My beat isn’t as sped as I’d hoped it be for this first day. But I’m here, present and done with grading. Didn’t go as slow as I wanted but I’m not concerned. It’s over. Now I move on and prep for next term. The class I teach at Stanford, or wherever will have me. Philosophy or Reasoning, Thought and Overthought, thought of in differing ways. Looked at clock and it reads 11:50. Earlier than measured.
Emptied backpack. Now the trick, keep it empty. No more carrying laptop around like an unneeded part of me. It’s not part of me, so unneeded entirely. Re-shaping self from Literary character to one just of thought. Plain thought. Act of thinking, understanding where I am and why— What brought a writer here, what does he see, what does he want. Is he being honest with himself in doing what he does or is he acting, doing what’s perceived to be “mature” or “professional”. Not referencing anything in particular, but I will give more focus to …. Don’t say it. That’s when you get into trouble, when you promise. And, that’s when you get bored with your writing like you are right now. Bored with this sentence… then the next one…. This one as well. Fuck, I think. Thinking of what to do with day to not just spice it up or garnish it with some unexpected electricity, but….
Quiet house. No kids or wife, just me and this stack of submissions that are anything but bewildering in quality from last term. There’s a couple, yes, that I guess you’d call impressive, or even strong.
My beat starts to pick up. It does. I notice myself start to feel like a student, again. Like a “teacher”, even. Part of me wants music, the other not. The silence of the house notes its own notes and anecdotes for me in a new year that’s not all too varied from last, but still distinct in composition. My composition changes. I realize— You realize where you’re headed when you change little attributes of your day-to-day. Teaching Philosophy, starting with deconstruction and postmodernist qualities in the Now.
12:02. Already half way through this first square, inaugural step. Anxiety grips me, angrily. I ignore it, or try. It’s there from my acknowledgement. Then I choose to not give it any sight or reaction. Turning attention to when I was in graduate school, my thesis on Carroll’s Alice works. I decide to start there, in this new beat. The child finding herself in an atmosphere where the logic is anti-logic, but that itself is sound, it constitutes a form of reasoning that must be learned. She attempts to adjust and she more or less does, finding herself in immediacy of too many pictures and too many conversations, as she wished for at the books very first utterances. Not sure where my copy of the book is, where my grad notes are if I even have them anymore. Doesn’t matter. Start over. That’s what new years are about, no? Renewed self, renewed sight, renewed power of self-renewal. And, ahead…..