Year Two

In one week, I begin my second year of PhD coursework (year two of three!) before I even reach the next mountain: comprehensive exams. To get there, I’ll need to become bilingual and complete an extensive additional reading list, on top of classes and research. Then, once comps are passed comes the dissertation, a wide-open, uncharted stretch of time and thought. And only then will I be considered almost done. But that’s the thing, its never done. Thinking never thins. Curiosity continues.

This path is long, and it’s meant to be. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the so-called meantime of it all is not worth going unnoticed.

I habitually move through life trying to make sure others know they exist in a specific, meaningful way…because they do. This core motive stays with me, even when the work shifts. I was a lifelong art kid, then a tattoo artist in my 20s. I came back to Texas and got married with a lot of tattoos and very little professional experience. I went back to school in my mid-twenties, changing my major from Fine Art to Mass Communication. Good grades. A mentor who told me to get a master’s degree. I did that too.

I stayed this wacky course of “I’m not sure what’s next, but I know what’s now, and I’ll do my best.” I want every room I’m in to be glad that I’m there, because I’m thrilled that they are.

Now I’m here. A year into a PhD, with an academic trajectory I wouldn’t trade for anything. But the art stuff is unrelenting. Even when neglected, it’s never gone.

This summer, I was supposed to find a job to help support this PhD goal. I applied. I interviewed well. But nothing landed. That felt like failure, for obvious reasons. Then something shifted. Painting commissions began finding their way to me quietly but steadily. I didn’t promote myself. I didn’t plan for them. Nonetheless in the end, I spent the summer making five custom paintings and earning more than I would have at any mindless desk job. More importantly, I wasn’t wasting the particular, individual contributions I know I have to offer.

So I’m no math gal but I can put 2 and 2 together. Maybe this PhD journey won’t just be about footnotes and theory. What if it’s sprinkled with art and people and meaning-making in motion? Maybe that’s not a detour or distraction, but an actual road. Maybe it’s my road. Maybe I’m the only one on it.

Even the #BOOKSWITHTIFF project I presented this summer offers a community art-exchange rooted in my PhD reading list. It feels like a microcosm of something larger. A little baby step for my brain. A way of honoring the work of learning while holding onto the reality that knowledge means more when it connects people to each other.

Summer is winding down, and as grateful as I am for the summer full of life and art I had, it’s time to get back to that lovely reading list. But now it’s a fuller knowing.

Knowing means more when you know what it’s for.