It's possible that some of you have noticed I have been absent without leave from Walking Distance for several weeks. This could have been interpreted in several ways.
a) I have abandoned writing to pursue my true passion, moonshining.
b) I have been too darn busy writing my dissertation to do anything else.
c) I was kidnapped by pirates who refused to free me until I taught them the hokey pokey.
If you guessed any of the above ... you were wrong. (And shame on me that the correct answer wasn’t b.)
Truthfully, I have been busy, yes, but with the usual juggle of writing, working, family obligations, and the added bonus of holiday planning/celebrating/recuperating. On all fronts, I suggest I was successful, as progress was made, work was accomplished, family time was happily spent, and the holiday was especially enjoyable. While I did not keep my nose to the proverbial grindstone on the dissertation writing to the point of agony, I did move ahead quite a bit, and for all this good progress, I am feeling good about where I am in that process.
Excited, even. I feel it coming together. I can see it happening and I can confidently say that I expect to finish my PhD in 2012. It won’t come easily, of course, and why should it? It has been a bear of a journey so far, and I don’t expect it to be any different as I pull it all together now.
The reason I have been quiet here is simply this: I did not have a particular message that I felt was significant enough to waste words. As I sit here now at 5:19 a.m. after having been up all night (ah, the familiar state of insomnia, a PhD candidate’s normal state of being!), I realize that this is an important message to pass along.
You see, my friends, there are times when silence is truly golden. Sometimes, it’s best to say nothing and savor the power of the unspoken.
Copyright 2011 By Marianne V. Heffernan
Friday, December 30, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Cherish the moments
There I was, minding my own business, undergoing an interesting outpatient procedure at a local hospital, when Eleanor Roosevelt sent me a message.
OK, so it wasn’t exactly Eleanor Roosevelt. It was more like a former student in the hospital’s internship program who left this message on a chalkboard that faced my patient station. She decorated that chalkboard more than three years ago, and the staff has left it intact because the words are timeless and oh so inspiring.
"I could not, at any age, be content to take place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life." - Eleanor Roosevelt.
Usually, I interpret this kind of message, randomly delivered, to be personally directed at me, of course. Rather, I personalize it, internalize it, and take it to heart. We don’t know everything, so when a message touches us, we should embrace it and apply it, because such things surely can’t be accidental.
I’m pretty sure in this case I am right. For this message spoke to me at a time when I was thinking about a very cool uncle of mine.
Uncle Frank is my father’s youngest brother. In our family, the DNA runs strong and deep, so you can see the family resemblance quite strikingly when you look at my Dad and Uncle Frank. It goes beyond that, too. Both of them worked at Sikorsky Aircraft here in Connecticut, one of the state’s major employers and the manufacturer of the well known Black Hawk helicopter.
Proud union members, they. Strong minded in their beliefs. Dedicated to their jobs because dedication to the job meant dedication to the families they were providing for. I think that was inherent in their generation, because work ethic these days for many people has a different definition.
Until last August, Uncle Frank held the title of being the longest serving employee at Sikorsky - just shy of 56 full years. He started working there directly after he concluded his military service as an Airman Third Class in the U.S. Air Force, and there is not a time I can remember seeing Uncle Frank over the years when he did not smile when he spoke about his job at Sikorsky.
“I got it made,” I think was the most common remark. He had his spot in the sheetmetal fabrication department. If I was lucky, I would catch him there on a rare occasion since I started working at the company several years ago. Without fail, he would break into an instant smile when he saw me coming.
For reasons that are his to hold, Uncle Frank decided it was time to call it a career. I say, good for him. His retirement is well deserved, and I hope it means he will have plenty of time now to drink in the love and attention of his family and good friends.
Over the years, Uncle Frank would be the rare uncle at a family gathering who would be taking video or photographs to capture the occasion and the family members that were there to share it. I remember him telling me that he kept a scrapbook of any newspaper articles about relatives, keeping track of the success story that accumulated over the years to continue telling the family story.
How can you not love a guy who is sentimental and proud of his family?
There are so many ways to describe Uncle Frank, from his affection for his German shepherds through the years (each one, according to him, being the “best dog in the world”) to his contagious laugh and an overly generous heart. He has always been exceedingly proud of his children, encouraging them and doing whatever he could to make their lives comfortable. I don’t know for sure but I would bet it was Uncle Frank who ignited the love of music that they each have and cultivate daily.
So many gifts from one man. Uncle Frank has not turned his back on life. He is taking each day as a gift. Life is meant to be lived, right?
The other day, when I returned to my patient station for my last therapy session, I again faced the Eleanor Roosevelt quote and settled in. As it does each morning, the pastoral care department then issued its daily inspirational message over the intercom system. The message angels were two for two, offering words that I believe in and know to my core.
Spend time with your loved ones; they’re not going to be around forever... Say I love you to your spouse and your loved ones... Hold hands... Cherish the moment.
Copyright 2011 By Marianne V. Heffernan
OK, so it wasn’t exactly Eleanor Roosevelt. It was more like a former student in the hospital’s internship program who left this message on a chalkboard that faced my patient station. She decorated that chalkboard more than three years ago, and the staff has left it intact because the words are timeless and oh so inspiring.
"I could not, at any age, be content to take place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life." - Eleanor Roosevelt.
Usually, I interpret this kind of message, randomly delivered, to be personally directed at me, of course. Rather, I personalize it, internalize it, and take it to heart. We don’t know everything, so when a message touches us, we should embrace it and apply it, because such things surely can’t be accidental.
I’m pretty sure in this case I am right. For this message spoke to me at a time when I was thinking about a very cool uncle of mine.
Uncle Frank is my father’s youngest brother. In our family, the DNA runs strong and deep, so you can see the family resemblance quite strikingly when you look at my Dad and Uncle Frank. It goes beyond that, too. Both of them worked at Sikorsky Aircraft here in Connecticut, one of the state’s major employers and the manufacturer of the well known Black Hawk helicopter.
Proud union members, they. Strong minded in their beliefs. Dedicated to their jobs because dedication to the job meant dedication to the families they were providing for. I think that was inherent in their generation, because work ethic these days for many people has a different definition.
Until last August, Uncle Frank held the title of being the longest serving employee at Sikorsky - just shy of 56 full years. He started working there directly after he concluded his military service as an Airman Third Class in the U.S. Air Force, and there is not a time I can remember seeing Uncle Frank over the years when he did not smile when he spoke about his job at Sikorsky.
“I got it made,” I think was the most common remark. He had his spot in the sheetmetal fabrication department. If I was lucky, I would catch him there on a rare occasion since I started working at the company several years ago. Without fail, he would break into an instant smile when he saw me coming.
For reasons that are his to hold, Uncle Frank decided it was time to call it a career. I say, good for him. His retirement is well deserved, and I hope it means he will have plenty of time now to drink in the love and attention of his family and good friends.
Over the years, Uncle Frank would be the rare uncle at a family gathering who would be taking video or photographs to capture the occasion and the family members that were there to share it. I remember him telling me that he kept a scrapbook of any newspaper articles about relatives, keeping track of the success story that accumulated over the years to continue telling the family story.
How can you not love a guy who is sentimental and proud of his family?
There are so many ways to describe Uncle Frank, from his affection for his German shepherds through the years (each one, according to him, being the “best dog in the world”) to his contagious laugh and an overly generous heart. He has always been exceedingly proud of his children, encouraging them and doing whatever he could to make their lives comfortable. I don’t know for sure but I would bet it was Uncle Frank who ignited the love of music that they each have and cultivate daily.
So many gifts from one man. Uncle Frank has not turned his back on life. He is taking each day as a gift. Life is meant to be lived, right?
The other day, when I returned to my patient station for my last therapy session, I again faced the Eleanor Roosevelt quote and settled in. As it does each morning, the pastoral care department then issued its daily inspirational message over the intercom system. The message angels were two for two, offering words that I believe in and know to my core.
Spend time with your loved ones; they’re not going to be around forever... Say I love you to your spouse and your loved ones... Hold hands... Cherish the moment.
Copyright 2011 By Marianne V. Heffernan
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Update and a precursor to an upcoming special post
I have a lot on my mind lately and promised a blog this weekend to share something inspirational, but be patient, as that post requires more time than I can spare this evening and I thought I should keep you posted on my Journey to Dissertation while my latest efforts are fresh.
I’m happy to say I’m making progress but it may not sound like it to you. Sure, you would expect that by “progress” I mean I have written scores of pages of my insightful research project, but you would be mistaken, forgive me for saying.
No, I have been re-skimming an important book in my literature references as I prepare the introductory chapters that will explain why my topic, Literary Grief: The Changing Communication Technologies in Grief Memoir, is a subject that has fascinated, intrigued and poked at humankind at least since the Middle Ages.
Well, that is as far back as I am willing to go, so let’s just leave it at that.
The 614-word book I have been scanning to refresh my memory and highlight the important points is Philippe Aries, The Hour of Our Death (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1981.) Historian Aries spent almost 20 years studying his topic (so I suppose I am ahead of the game, as my Journey to Dissertation so far has only taken about 5.5 years): the changes in Western attitudes toward death and dying from the earliest Christian times to the current day (OK, so until about 1981 when the book was first published).
In any case, it is considered a landmark study that demonstrates a pattern of gradually developing evolutionary stages in our perception of life in relation to death. Each stage suggests a redefining of human nature.
I’ll leave it there for now. I am using Aries to help me set the stage for my exploration of how authors of books, documentaries, and even Internet blogs and web sites are publicly offering memoirs and memoir-like writings and whether these three distinct forms of writing all constitute memoir. I am a writer, after all. I am fascinated by compelling writing, and to me, telling the stories of people we love whom we have lost is possibly one of the most important works of writing anyone can produce.
I plan to do some of this myself, of course; another reason I need to understand this unique genre; another reason I want to share in a meaningful way the stories of my loved ones. I am doing some of it here, so you, too, perhaps find it helpful or perhaps even comforting in some way. I hope so.
I have three days before this book and two others that I borrowed via the state of Connecticut’s InterLibrary Loan system (which I highly recommend; you can find most anything you need with this valuable tool and it has saved me virtually hundreds of dollars in buying books that I may not need to keep forever -- contrary to the hundreds of books I already own which I will never give up).
This week, along with ripping through a few books (This is what PhD candidates do, by the way. We read. We “rip” through books, we skim, we glance, we speed-read. There are only so many hours in the day, you know.) to refresh my memory on the key points that are helping me to flesh out my Introduction and first chapter parts, I also did something that I require to be successful in this journey. If you are a list-maker like I am, you will appreciate this.
Of course, on the same piece of paper, I also drafted a list of Christmas gift ideas for my loved ones, a list far too long for my current budget, but nonetheless, a list to get my shopping mojo fired up). I can't just focus on one task, you know. Writers are all over the map. It is best you learn this now.
I drafted a “schedule” for the next month. Yes, a day-by-day estimate of the hours I will spend working on this massive writing project. Some days, maybe three hours is all I will achieve. Other days will be marathons including late nights. I can tell you this: I have a long stretch of “off” time coming up, unused vacation and personal days coupled with a lovely weeklong holiday vacation from work that my company generously provides (thank you, Teamsters Local 1150, for my father, a proud longtime former employee of my company, tells me that is why we have the holiday week off), and I intend to spend nearly every one of those days devoting a stretch of time to this project.
Mind you, it is an aggressive schedule and I am not foolish enough to believe I will hold to it scrupulously every day. My intentions are good and strong, and I know I can do it if I choose. The thing is, I also value time with my friends and family, and I know that I will give myself a pass to indulge in some visiting and relaxation because it is too important, too precious, not to.
This brings me to one of the next blog posts I need to share. It is weighing on me something fierce, and it is too important to keep to myself. A special family member is ill and I want to speak about this awesome man in the present, so I hope you’ll stop back to meet my dear Uncle Frank. I want to share him, because I know you’re gonna love him. Perhaps I will find the words tomorrow. Please stop back.
Copyright 2011 By Marianne V. Heffernan
I’m happy to say I’m making progress but it may not sound like it to you. Sure, you would expect that by “progress” I mean I have written scores of pages of my insightful research project, but you would be mistaken, forgive me for saying.
No, I have been re-skimming an important book in my literature references as I prepare the introductory chapters that will explain why my topic, Literary Grief: The Changing Communication Technologies in Grief Memoir, is a subject that has fascinated, intrigued and poked at humankind at least since the Middle Ages.
Well, that is as far back as I am willing to go, so let’s just leave it at that.
The 614-word book I have been scanning to refresh my memory and highlight the important points is Philippe Aries, The Hour of Our Death (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1981.) Historian Aries spent almost 20 years studying his topic (so I suppose I am ahead of the game, as my Journey to Dissertation so far has only taken about 5.5 years): the changes in Western attitudes toward death and dying from the earliest Christian times to the current day (OK, so until about 1981 when the book was first published).
In any case, it is considered a landmark study that demonstrates a pattern of gradually developing evolutionary stages in our perception of life in relation to death. Each stage suggests a redefining of human nature.
I’ll leave it there for now. I am using Aries to help me set the stage for my exploration of how authors of books, documentaries, and even Internet blogs and web sites are publicly offering memoirs and memoir-like writings and whether these three distinct forms of writing all constitute memoir. I am a writer, after all. I am fascinated by compelling writing, and to me, telling the stories of people we love whom we have lost is possibly one of the most important works of writing anyone can produce.
I plan to do some of this myself, of course; another reason I need to understand this unique genre; another reason I want to share in a meaningful way the stories of my loved ones. I am doing some of it here, so you, too, perhaps find it helpful or perhaps even comforting in some way. I hope so.
I have three days before this book and two others that I borrowed via the state of Connecticut’s InterLibrary Loan system (which I highly recommend; you can find most anything you need with this valuable tool and it has saved me virtually hundreds of dollars in buying books that I may not need to keep forever -- contrary to the hundreds of books I already own which I will never give up).
This week, along with ripping through a few books (This is what PhD candidates do, by the way. We read. We “rip” through books, we skim, we glance, we speed-read. There are only so many hours in the day, you know.) to refresh my memory on the key points that are helping me to flesh out my Introduction and first chapter parts, I also did something that I require to be successful in this journey. If you are a list-maker like I am, you will appreciate this.
Of course, on the same piece of paper, I also drafted a list of Christmas gift ideas for my loved ones, a list far too long for my current budget, but nonetheless, a list to get my shopping mojo fired up). I can't just focus on one task, you know. Writers are all over the map. It is best you learn this now.
I drafted a “schedule” for the next month. Yes, a day-by-day estimate of the hours I will spend working on this massive writing project. Some days, maybe three hours is all I will achieve. Other days will be marathons including late nights. I can tell you this: I have a long stretch of “off” time coming up, unused vacation and personal days coupled with a lovely weeklong holiday vacation from work that my company generously provides (thank you, Teamsters Local 1150, for my father, a proud longtime former employee of my company, tells me that is why we have the holiday week off), and I intend to spend nearly every one of those days devoting a stretch of time to this project.
Mind you, it is an aggressive schedule and I am not foolish enough to believe I will hold to it scrupulously every day. My intentions are good and strong, and I know I can do it if I choose. The thing is, I also value time with my friends and family, and I know that I will give myself a pass to indulge in some visiting and relaxation because it is too important, too precious, not to.
This brings me to one of the next blog posts I need to share. It is weighing on me something fierce, and it is too important to keep to myself. A special family member is ill and I want to speak about this awesome man in the present, so I hope you’ll stop back to meet my dear Uncle Frank. I want to share him, because I know you’re gonna love him. Perhaps I will find the words tomorrow. Please stop back.
Copyright 2011 By Marianne V. Heffernan
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