20190112.0430

I noted in yesterday's post that I have a persistent fantasy about getting a couple of days to myself to recover and to write. It is not the only writing fantasy I have, of course. There is still some part of me that hopes someday to revise my dissertation into a fuller monograph, for what little that will matter now that I am so far off the tenure track that I cannot even see the stadium anymore. I may, perhaps, put the limerick sequence into print, although the more I think about it, the less likely I think it to be that I will; I have no re-read it in a while, but I do not think it is the best work I can do. The hymns against the stupid god are likely a better candidate for printing, although, given the way things look to be going as I write this, their publication might become something of a danger to me; dictatorship looms.
But more closely akin to what I discussed yesterday is the thought that I might sometime take a writing retreat. I have seen no few of them advertised, but I know them to be directed towards writers who are in a position to focus more fully on their writing than I can afford to do--whether that is because their professional lives are more conducive to such things than mine or because their personal lives are, or both. I cannot take a week away from work simply to sit and write, or I feel I cannot, though I earn paid time off in my current position and, with enough advance notice, can make arrangements for it. More, though, I cannot take a week away from my family to do so; they need me, and I them, far more than I need to spend isolated days with pen in hand or keyboard under fingers (and, as I've noted, the distinction matters).
It is not a weakness, though. There are many things that call to me to do, some more strongly than others. That I acknowledge more of them than I can achieve in the short term, and likely even in the long term, does not mean I am a failure; it means that there is always room for me to improve, always a way for me to get better, always something new to which I can turn my attentions and efforts. I am never done, and that is good, because it means I never have to be done; I always have something else to do. I always have a means to move ahead, even if "ahead" occasionally shifts direction. And that is something worthwhile, I think.
While I will not pretend that having an ever-open set of tasks to accomplish is a panacea, I do think it has helped me to avoid some of the missteps I have seen others make. And if I can learn from others instead of the pain of direct experience, I think I am better off for it.