there's just a tinge of fall to the air these days, just an insinuating coolness at night that says, don't think summer's going to last forever, you'd better get on enjoying the dregs because something else is about to happen. Usually I love this time of year but this time around I'm feeling increasingly panicked about time passing, because it means I'm that much closer to a deadline I'm increasingly convinced I have no way of fulfilling.
My thesis is growing in fits and starts. I still dread sitting down to work on it, but hey. After much hemming and hawing I submitted the first twenty-three pages, which were returned to me with more red ink than black on them. I suspect this is not an unusual way to proceed, but illustrates all too clearly that I need to become far more thick-skinned and in short order.
The two most important lessons I have learned so far from this new intellectual milestone are as follows: a.) I am far smarter than I think I am, and b.) I am not nearly as smart as I think I am. I am smarter, in the sense that the Jedi Council seems to think I am worth training up in the ways of the Force, and my progress from here on out is individual. So far they haven't violently swept all my work off the table and said, "This is unserviceable folderol! Where do we even begin?!" Which, again, I think is a good sign.
I am not nearly as smart as I thought, in the sense that the more brilliant I feel one of my ideas is, the greater the likelihood someone else has already said it. I recently discovered that I will have to credit two of my most prized ideas because I was not the one to originate them. At least not the first one. I did originate them, since they came out of my own brain, just somebody else did it first is all. How disappointing.
And so I slog, still dreading sitting down to write, though less so on each occasion. I have taken advantage of my summer for the things that make Michigan summers special, in my estimation: farmers' market, fresh tomatoes, late night swimming, micro-brews on the porch and the sound of the crickets, listening to Beck: Sea Changes in the car in the dark with all the windows down. Though it sometimes feels that the only thing that could possibly matter is whether I finish writing this crazy book probably no one will ever read who isn't paid to, co-authoring it, or a member of my immediate family, these things remind me there is plenty to enjoy, and that when this summer closes, another will come hard on its heels.
