I have not blogged regularly for more than six months. As time passes, I got in the habit of not writing, just as much as I had been in the habit of writing just about every day for a stretch earlier last year. And then I froze up, thinking that I would have to be ready to express something significant in order to start up again, and then I blocked myself.
So here we are.
I’ve decided to unblock myself by expressing myself more freely, including in whatever language I fancy at the moment, perhaps even switching in the middle of an entry. But I won’t do that here, that would be a cheap trick.
So much has happened in the past half year that I could write about. Where to begin, how to start? Right here, right now, I’m simply freewriting. It’s a practice that is central to the L&T (Language and Thinking) Program, a writing-intensive cross-disciplinary small-workshop academic orientation for undergraduates matriculating into Bard College. I taught in L&T for four summers starting in 1995, and also in similar programs geared towards high-school students at Kenyon and Lake Forest, and then started my own workshop program in Santa Fe, New Mexico at St. John’s College when I taught there. But when I left Bard High School Early College in 2003 and joined Carnegie Mellon, I gave all of that up, because of my extensive year-long responsibilities at CMU. It was a joy to return to Bard, to be with Bard students, to see some old friends and engage once again with them. I did not give myself enough time to enjoy the Hudson Valley. For years I’ve felt that Upstate New York, ranging from the Finger Lakes over to the Adirondacks and then down the Hudson, that Upstate is God’s Country.
But then in September and October I visited England, Sweden, and Ireland. I will write more later about this trip, but this is just to say that Ireland, in particular driving along the Wild Atlantic Way, took my breath away.
And last month I took an 18-day trip to Japan, my first time since briefly visiting Tokyo as a child, and there is so much still bouncing in my head about that visit.
I’ll write about each of these trips on this blog, so some of my upcoming reflections will be anchored in Place. But I also have a lot of thoughts about retranslating José Rizal’s “Mi último adiós”, reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano, volunteering as a poll worker during the General Election, touring colleges, preserving time capsules, mitigating the risk of communicating with potential extraterrestrials, and so many other things that will come to me as they do.
Welcome back! Sounds like you have had a very full few months.
I know *exactly* what you mean about not-writing becoming a habit as much as writing. I have often flip-flopped between these two habits, and have often beat myself up about that flip-flopping. But over the years I have finally come to realize that beating myself up accomplishes little to nothing, and I am getting better at not doing that, and just embracing that sometimes I will write, and sometimes I won’t, and it’s fine either way.
Thank you for the supportive words, Kristan! Yes, the last several months have been jam-packed although I’ve also had the luxury to find downtime, which I find I need more as I get older. The necessity of a post-vacation vacation is real.
I also wanted to note that the title I chose for this post is a bit misleading, because I don’t really write here about the fascism we are experiencing in spots around the world, including the US. Furthermore, my extensive travels around the globe display that I myself generally experience a great deal of freedom, at a level unmatched in this or any previous era. But I do travel lightly (which is to say, with deference to local customs, with little baggage, and as inexpensively as possible — although flying carries a heavy cost in greenhouse gas emissions). And I certainly do not take for granted the level of privilege I possess.
This extends to the freedom to write or to not write, as I wish, at least for now.