submerging : emerging

breath. drop below. exhale. resistance. empty. push up. break the surface. inhale. plunge.

so many books. why does mine matter? it doesn't. then why am i doing it? an exercise in radical humility. ?....?.....?

the inch worm

well, the rapture is tomorrow, and today i am writing. thinking. breathing.

yes, i started this post before the [anti]climax, the end or beginning of the world, what a farce. and yet, isn't this a basic desire? the end of desire, the end of needing air, the end of ambition, of toil, of work, of coming face to face with our limitations. i am so limited. we wait for the final emergence. or would it be submergence?

yes, it has been over a month since i typed a few stray phrases into the post field of this blog. after easter, i want[ed] to write about emerging. you know, about finally breaking the surface of my research, and becoming a prolific dissertator. however, the best i seem to be able to do is get my mouth above water for one or two desperate gasps before the current of self-doubt pulls me back under. These gasps look like two-three meticulous sentences, a paragraph if i'm lucky.

yes, the new post page has been a tab in my web browser since easter, a book mark in a dusty self-help book, a reminder that i haven't given up, but i'm not exactly motivated. i am suspended, hanging under water, watching others swim by me, feeling their ripples jostle me, inspiring envy and more fear. some days the current will move me along, but mostly i am paralyzed. i will need to start swimming. otherwise, it will not be long before i become a rock at the bottom of the stream, unmoving.

yes, others have struggled with the paralysis of fear and have overcome it, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Annie Dillard, in The Writing Life describes writing as analogous to the life of an inch worm, the perilous journey up a stalk of grass. One inch at a time, the inch worm must learn to move forward, again and again. s/he moves an inch and then looses her grip on the blade. legs flailing, head spinning in the abyss, s/he must figure out, for each inch forward, how to reattach. and each time, it seems there is no way forward, that it is the end of he/r life, the end of he/r work. but each time, she finds the blade again. and just when she reaches the top, the blade bends to meet another, and s/he starts all over again.

no, not again...

yes, again. all it takes is one stroke forward, one gasp for air. soon, my muscles will remember how to work. eventually they will find syncrenicity. i will not be breathing in desperate gasps. i will find the rhythm again. and when i have found my way out of dead waters, the current will again be behind me. i believe this?